Hands on Fraction Fun
Coming into this school year, I knew that the thing my fourth graders struggled with most last year was fractions. I remember chatting with the teacher they had for third grade math about their strengths and needs and fractions came up over and over again. After reading Beyond Pizzas & Pies and Beyond Invert and Multiply this past summer I had plenty of new ideas and lessons to try out but I still hadn't quite figured how I wanted to kick off this unit. This class in particular has a huge span of ability levels and experiences and I wanted everyone to be able to access this first lesson without it being to easy for half the class. I also wanted to provide them with a hands on experience using fractions in their world. I decided to have them in mixed ability groups exploring some fraction manipulatives. I put a manipulative at each table along with a large piece of chart paper and a variety of markers. Their task was to explore the materials...