Hundredths

Cut every tenth into 10 smaller pieces. That gives 100 pieces in the whole.

Two places after the point

35/100 is written 0.35. The first place is tenths, the second is hundredths.

Ten hundredths make a tenth

A whole column of the grid is 10 hundredths, which is 1 tenth.

A lonely hundredth

7/100 is written 0.07. There are no whole tenths, so a 0 holds that place.

Cut each tenth into ten

Split each tenth into ten smaller pieces and you have hundredths. Two decimal places means hundredths: 0.43 is 4 tenths and 3 hundredths, or 43 hundredths altogether. Both readings are correct and useful.

The hundred grid

A ten-by-ten grid is the standard picture. One column is a tenth; one small square is a hundredth. Shading 43 squares shows 0.43, and you can see the four full columns plus three extra squares. The picture makes both readings visible at once.

Naming the places

In 3.47 the 3 is ones, the 4 is tenths, the 7 is hundredths. There is no "oneths" place — the ones place already sits to the left of the point, and the pattern is symmetrical about the ones, not about the point.

You already use hundredths daily

A cent is a hundredth of a dollar, so $3.47 is three dollars and forty-seven hundredths. Money is the most familiar decimal system in the world, and it is worth leaning on that familiarity when the notation feels unfamiliar.