New Fraction Fun!

This year our fraction standards in Texas changed quite a bit. I’m not sure exactly what they were in the past, but they are pretty specific now. I’ve had to modify the majority of my existing lessons to meet our new standards, but while doing so, it helped me think of some new ideas! So, I want to show you what has been working for us, as well as some updates that I made to my “Become a Fraction Fanatic” unit!

We started our fraction lessons with this simple lesson that was recommended by my district. I gave each student 2 blue circles. We talked about dividing it into two equal parts, and just what exactly we should do. Then, we made two unequal parts. This allowed us to have a really good discussion about the importance of equal parts and making things fair… which should help jumpstart our division units in a few weeks! After the circle, we did the same thing with fourths and eighths. Overall, I really enjoyed this because we were able to discuss, discuss, discuss!

It was very hands-on because the students were doing all of the folding, thinking, and cutting!

Today I brought out the pattern blocks to talk a little more about equal and unequal parts. I simply drew a line with an Expo marker over some of my pattern blocks. I passed them out around the class, and they came up to sort the shapes under our document camera.

Then it was time for our Fraction Booklets! This is always a class favorite!

Since, in Texas, we are now only doing halves, fourths, and eighths, those are the only pages that I copied. This led to great discussions about how halves are larger than fourths, which are larger than eighths if given the same whole. We were also able to see that two-fourths made one-half, and six-eighths made three-fourths. It was great!

Since we are just focusing on halves, fourths, and eighths (and only writing fractions in word form) I had to update a few things. So, I made the following sorts for our math spirals. We will be tackling these guys in the next few days!

All of these sorts have been added to my Fraction Unit, so if you have already purchased, make sure you re-download!

I still wanted to incorporate our fraction hats, but I needed to adjust those a little. So, I decided that we would order fractions given shapes that are divided into fourths. It is still the same concept as the other hat that was included, but just with a different skill!

If you are in Texas, and you are struggling to find fraction activities that only involve the halves, fourths, and eighths… I feel your pain! You can snag these fraction posters for free below! Just right-click the image and save to your computer!