Display 0.001 as pupils settle. Give five seconds of quiet think-time before taking two or three hands-up answers.

Don't confirm the answer yet — this is the question the whole lesson answers. If a pupil says "a thousand", revoice it as a prediction to check, not a fact to bank.

Walk each example aloud, one at a time.

• 0.4 — name it "four tenths", then point to the empty hundredths and thousandths columns.
• 0.27 — stress that the 7 is in the hundredths column, not the tenths.
• 0.305 — pause on the zero. Ask "what is the 0 holding for us?" before revealing it holds the hundredths place.
• 2.408 — read it as "two and four hundred and eight thousandths" so pupils hear the th column named.

This round is for talking it through together — pupils take turns at the board and the class agrees or corrects out loud.

Call each decimal, send one pupil to the board to build it on the place-value chart (decimal mode, U/t/h/th columns), and have the class name each column as it fills. Watch for the common slip of reading 0.409 as "four hundred and nine" — revoice it as four tenths, no hundredths, nine thousandths.

Rotate four pupils so each builds one number.

This round is the practice bank — pupils take turns at the board, check each answer, and the class confirms before moving on. Keep the board work brisk rather than over-explaining.

Each target builds a decimal on the place-value chart in U/t/h/th columns. Watch the order of difficulty: 0.006 (thousandths only), 0.05 (hundredths only), 0.408 (no hundredths), 1.207 (whole plus no hundredths), 3.090 (trailing zero in thousandths). The trailing zero in 3.090 is the trickiest — ask "does this 0 change the value?" as a maths-talk seed for the wrap.