Fractions and Literature

The Math and Literature series by Marilyn Burns is one of my favorite math teaching tools.  The book suggests books and lessons that tie math and story together.  Kids come up with al kinds of ideas to explain because they have such an unstructured way to respond to the math prompt.  The story form gets kids who often get stuck a different way to think about math concepts.   

This lesson was all about how to equally share cookies based on an event from Little House in the Big Woods.

Happy Wednesday,

More Fraction Fun

Yesterday, in small group time, we pulled out the dominoes  and had to put them in order from least to greatest with like denominators.  The best arguments occurred about whether 8/8 was the biggest and should be at the end or 12/8. 

After deciding on the best order for least to greatest...I had a great idea to practice greater than/less than.  So I ripped up some scratch paper and put the three signs on them.  Each person in the group had to make an expression using the paper and two dominoes.....they could ALL do it!  I say again, how much I love teaching with toys!

Note:  The pictures are taken from my point of view....so it looks like the numerator is 8, but for the students 8 was the denominator.

On Monday, I rewarded my math class with popcorn.  They were so excited....and then I turned it into fractions....
First they had to count all their pieces for their denominator.  Then we divided the pieces into halve, and fourths, and sixths.

After we finished we threw our paper towels into the garbage can.  Only we threw one at a time and kept track of the score....the part whole score that is.  Every time someone made it, we write the fraction of baskets and every time someone missed we wrote a fraction for that as well.  Who know basketball could be so fun:-(

Happy Thursday,

Fraction Fun...with Games

Still working with the world of fractions.  Today I realized there are a LOT of things to be said for using toys as a teaching tool.  I do it often:-) Here were today's fraction stations:
"Smores"  We play "Go Fish" with fractions.  Only instead of saying, "go fish", we say "get s'more."  It is a great game from Fireside Fractions, a unit I won from Tonya's Treats for Teachers.  The s'mores game has a gameboard but we were changing it up a bit.  Some students played it like Memory. Amazing unit for teaching fractions!
Get S'more Game-

 S'more Memory-

We played a game with pattern blocks also.  You know the dot game, where you connect two dots at a time and whoever finishes the box, gets to put their initial inside it.  Well we did that with Hexagon cookies.  Partners took turns rolling a dice with fractions on it.  The die had thirds, halves, and sixths.  Then students had to find the pattern block that matched.  So 1/6 is one triangle because it takes six triangles to fill the hexagon.  Whoever put in the final piece filling the hexagon got to put their name in the hexagon.

Then we played with Dominoes.  I gave everyone a domino.  They had to tell what fraction the domino showed and then put themselves in order from least to greatest.  The catch....they had to move themselves into order without talking:-)

Checking each others' dominoes.

Well...it was mostly a success...those darn different denominators throw us off a bit:-)

Happy Wednesday,

Fraction Fun

Today is a list of helpful, online games to practice fractions.  I have a love/hate relationship with fractions so hopefully games will get kids more on the love side of fractions.  Click the title to try them out.
1.  Fraction Flags
You decide on how many divisions....

Then make a flag that matches.

2.  Fraction Bowling

3.  Fraction Races

4.  Fraction Naming

4.  Fraction Dolphin Races

For those of you working on fractions...hopefully this is helpful.
Happy Thursday,