A Lesson for Equivalent Fractions

A lesson for equivalent fractions Fifth or Sixth

Standards: USD 259 Standard 4 for fifth grade and also standard 3 for sixth grade.

Diversity Needs: We will teach to many different learning styles, including visual (the movie), auditory (the explanations), and kinesthetic (inspiration and kid pix), We will also work in pairs providing a scaffold for learners. Working in groups is a good way to involve introverted students to participate and extroverted students a chance to become engaged. Also, working in groups is a good way to provide a good experience for females in mathematics.

Objective: Given the website with the equivalent fraction game, http://www.alfy.com/Scripts/go.asp? url=http://www.learningplanet.com/sam/ff/frenzy.htm&purl=/Teachers/Teach/Thema ,the students will be able to identify equivalent fractions with an 80% accuracy.

Anticipatory Set / Hook: In order to engage the students in the learning activities we need to provide a way for them to feel involved and interested. We feel the best way to involve the students with equivalent fractions would be to use candy bars. We will bring in a candy bar and talk about denominators, bigger the piece is smaller, etc. We will cut the candy into several different pieces and discuss their sizes and equivalencies.

Explore: Put students into groups of 4. Provide “pies” as manipulatives for the group of students. Ask them to discuss the differences in the sizes of the pieces. If there are more pieces to the “pie” are the slices smaller or larger? Are you able to put different pieces together to equal the same fraction?

Real World Application: If you split it into many different pieces, will you get to eat as much?

Presenting the Lesson: We need to discuss the differences in the different fractions given. We will show the students a short power point presentation to help them have a better understanding of what equivalent fractions are. Hand out fraction bars. Have them color them in one color for less than half and a different one for greater than half. This idea would be one that would be beneficial to both the kinesthetic and visual learners. Guided Practice: Put the students into groups of two. Try to provide a scaffold at this point in the lesson. Have the students who are a little more comfortable with the concept pair with someone who may not be. (Make the groups ahead of time) Using “Kid Pix” have the students stamp a certain picture several times. Then directly underneath it have them stamp a different picture, more times than is on the top. Show them how to draw the line. Then have the partner try to duplicate the fraction using an equivalent fraction, not the exact one used before.

After the students have worked on “Kid Pix” for about fifteen minutes. Bring the focus back to the teacher for a moment. Have them move back to their seats.

Cue: Bring to their attention that they may choose to be tested on equivalent fractions using Kid Pix or another technology.

Independent Practice: A game that is online and interactive will be the independent practice. The students will work individually on the game. It is timed and is a good self-assessment. The game is pretty fun and you work for points. It starts out simple and slowly moves to more difficult problems. For the student to complete the task, the teacher will want the student to make a certain number of points. We will have them play the game several times and have them see which level is the average score. We want them to hit the average.

Assessment: We will have the students pick a way to be assessed. They can either take a written test over equivalent fractions or they can creatively show that they know equivalent fractions using different maipulatives discussed (Kid Pix, Power Point, or make a set of foam manipulatives).