In our next couple of lessons, we're going to learn how to compare numbers. When we're comparing numbers, we're trying to figure out which number is more than or less than the other number. And this is really helpful when we're working with inequalities. Remember in our last lesson we learned that inequalities mean that one side is greater or less than the other side. So we're going to use those inequality symbols to help us compare integers and decimals. Let's compare two and negative five. Well, to complete this comparison, we need to figure out what inequality symbol should go in the box. And just to review, here are our four inequality symbols. We can have greater than, less than, greater than, or equal to or less than or equal to. If we look at our two numbers, two and negative five definitely aren't equal to each other. So we can get rid of those last two options because they're saying that it's possible that the numbers are equal and these two numbers definitely are not equal. So it's either going to be greater than or less than for the symbol that we use. And here we have a positive number and a negative number. Sometimes those negative numbers can get a little tricky. And in that case, it's helpful to picture where the numbers are on the number line. Whatever number is further to the right, that means that that number is larger. And whatever number is further to the left, that number is smaller. So let's see where these numbers fall on the number line. Here's our positive two. And our negative five is to the left. So since the two is further to the right, we would say that two is greater than negative five. So we'll fill that box in with the greater than symbol. Another trick to remember is that if you think of that inequality symbol as an arrow, you want the arrow to point to the smaller number. So that little trick can come in handy sometimes too. Now let's compare a decimal. We have 22.8 and 25.4. Well, where do we begin with decimal numbers to see which one is bigger, which one is smaller. First we want to line up the decimal so that we can see each digit, each place value clearly. So we line them up on top of each other, making sure that those decimal points line up. And this is just like when we do when we're adding or subtracting decimals. If you recall how we have to line those decimals up to make sure that we're adding and subtracting the proper digits. Same process here. Next we want to focus on the whole number part. We're going to compare the whole number of parts of these decimals first. So that's going to be the numbers that are to the left of the decimal point. So we have 22 and 25. Well, we can see that 22 is less than 25. So that means that 22.8 has to be less than 25.4. So here we only needed to look at the whole number part to be able to tell which number was larger or smaller. We didn't even need to go to the decimal part. But sometimes we do need to focus on the digits that are in the decimal part. As we'll see in this example, we have 3.59 and 3.54. We'll do the same thing that we did before and line up our decimals, making sure those decimal points are one on top of the other. And now we'll start by looking at the whole number parts. Our whole numbers are the same. Both numbers have three as their whole number part. So that doesn't help us to figure out which one of these numbers is larger or smaller because the threes are both the same. So now we'll have to start looking at the decimal part. So now we just go one place value after the decimal point, which is the 10th place value. And here we have fives for both of these decimal numbers. Well, both of the fives are the same, so that doesn't help us to see which number is greater or less than the other. So let's keep going over. Let's look at the place value. There we go. We finally have different numbers. The nine is greater than the four. So that helps us to see that 3.59 is greater than 3.54. So as you can see, there's all different kind of strategies that you can use when you're comparing numbers. You can use a number line to see how the numbers are positioned. And with decimals, you can use this strategy by comparing the whole number part. And if the whole numbers are the same, then you start looking at the decimal parts one place value at a time until you get to a place value where the numbers are different.