What are repeating decimals?

A repeating decimal is a number that has digits that keep going on and on, following a pattern you can recognize.

Imagine you're sharing 1 candy bar equally among 3 friends. Each friend gets a piece that looks like this: 0.333333..., the 3 keeps showing up again and again! That's a repeating decimal, where one or more digits repeat endlessly.

When you divide numbers, sometimes the result doesn’t end, it just keeps going with a pattern. For example:

• 1 ÷ 3 = 0.333...
• 2 ÷ 3 = 0.666...

These are called repeating decimals because a group of digits repeats forever.

Think about a clock. Every time the minute hand goes around, it shows the same numbers again, like how repeating decimals show the same digits over and over. Just as the clock is predictable, so are these kinds of numbers!