Alley Alligator likes to eat big numbers! Yum!

Many educators have heard of the greater than/less than alligator. Above is a song that can be used to help teach younger students in K-2nd grade how to solve these equations. Alley likes to eat the bigger number so the symbol will always have its "mouth" open to the bigger number. When the number is the same, Alley can not decide which one to eat so she eats both. This is where you would have the equal sign between both numbers with eyes and teeth drawn on. This gets students use to doing these types of problems. When helping students to remember the names of the sign, mention that you read the symbol like you would a sentence from left to right. For example the smaller end comes first on less than and the larger and wider end comes first on greater than.