Equivalent Fraction and a great review strategy

Happy snow day!  Believe it or not this is our fifth snow day this school year.  Here in eastern North Carolina we rarely get snow days just an occasional hurricane day every couple of years.

Since we have had so many snow days we are really behind in our fraction unit so I decided to review equivalent fractions with a great review strategy that I found at my friend Mandy's blog at http://the4thgradejourney.blogspot.com/.  

I used a previously created worksheet to review equivalent fractions.  It is designed in a tic tac toe board and I chose this particular worksheet because it begins with pictorial representations and ends with abstract examples where students have to apply the math skills taught to identify equivalent fractions.  As you can see in the picture they did have fraction bars if they needed that concrete manipulative to help them solve the problems.  Students worked on the assignment independently and as they worked I passed out red and green algebra tiles for the review part of the lesson.  

Once students completed the task we reviewed each problem together on the Elmo.  As we discussed the answer to each problem they placed a green tile on the problem if they got it correct and a red tile on the problem if they got it incorrect.  Once we reviewed the whole sheet they were required to write the fraction for the number of problems they got correct at the top of the paper.  I went around the room and checked each students fraction to make sure that they wrote it correctly. If they did I gave them a piece of candy!

The students really enjoyed the activity and the self-check and immediate feedback was a hit!

Now if we ever get back to school we can continue on our fraction journey.

Equivalent Fractions

We started our fraction unit a week late due to a rare four days off for snow.  We don't get much snow in Eastern North Carolina so just 2-3 inches caused students to have off for four days!

We began the week by discussing whether or not 1/4 and 2/8 were the same.  We used paper folding to determine if they were the same number.  During our next lesson we used a Meaningful Math Task created by our district curriculum specialist.  The task was:

My students sit with a partner throughout the day, partners are grouped according to abilities so that students can learn from one another and get support as needed.   The lesson began by displaying the Math Task on the SmartBoard and students were given fraction bars to assist them in visualizing how to determine which person had the best plan for sharing the brownies.  The math talk was very interesting and diverse.  Just from listening to the students talk with their partners it was clear who had a grasp of the concept and who would need additional support.   Several students struggled with the fact that denominators were not the same or that there were more pieces in the brownies that were cut in sixths and twelfths.  
I heard one of my students clearly tell his partner that the fractions were all the same because the fraction bars all lined up so therefore they had to be the same or equivalent.  Here are pictures of how the students worked out the problem with their partners.

Students spent about 10 minutes working with their partner to determine if the fractions were equivalent.  We then discussed how many brownies each person would get for each of the three plans listed in the task.  This discussion allowed us to generate a list of equivalent fractions and students recorded these in their math journals.  

This was a great way to introduce students to the concept of equivalent fractions.  The use of the fraction bars gave students the opportunity to visualize what the pieces of brownies would look like. Allowing students to begin with a concrete representation before moving to a pictorial and eventually abstract representation is the best way to engage students in math concepts that can be very difficult to comprehend.  

We ended the week by playing a great game called Take Away game with smartie candies.  The students enjoyed the game.  

Hope you enjoy this activity with your students.