Eating Fractions by Bruce McMillan
Give each student a plate with 2 plain sugar cookies. Put a spoonful of strawberry icing on the side. Model cutting the first cookie into 2 equal pieces. Students then cut.
How many pieces of this cookie do we have?
Let’s put icing on one of those two pieces.
Each piece is now one half. Show how to write ½
Now cut the second cookie into 4 pieces.
How many pieces of this cookie do you have?
Put icing on one of the pieces.
That piece is now ¼
Circulate and have students point to the ½ or the ¼
How many halves can we eat?
How many fourths can we eat?
EAT the COOKIES!
As an additional writing activity, have the students draw the two cookies and how they cut them. Have them label them with proper fractions.
Have them write a sentence: I cut my cookie in 2 pieces. I frosted ½ ______.
I cut my cookie in 4 pieces. I frosted ¼ _______.
Spill the Beans Fraction Center
Spray paint one side of a bunch of kidney beans.
Place varying amounts in little canisters.
Student spills out and records with crayons the colors that are facing up on the beans.
Student records the fractional amount.
Ex. – 6/8 brown
Family Fractions
As a class, figure out the male/female fractional parts of the class.
Do this for hair and eye color as well.
Students then draw family members with their correct attributes.
Then students write:
2/5 of my family has blond hair.
3/5 of my family has brown hair.
Dictate several words to students (word wall or spelling).
What fractional amount are vowels? Consonants?
Flavorful Fractions
Give each student a bag of 12 mini marshmallows in all 4 colors with no more than 8 of any one color. Students graph the colors.
Then the students answer questions such as:
How many orange do you have? Yellow? Pink? Green?
How many in all?
Write the fraction that represents each color.
Fishing for Fractions
Give each student ¼ cup of an assortment of Goldfish crackers (cheddar, pizza, pretzel).
Have them sort them.
How many in your catch are cheddar? Pizza? Pretzel?
How many did you catch in all?
Write fractions that represent each cracker type.
For more advanced have the students name the fractional part for a cracker combination (pizza and cheddar, pretzel and pizza, cheddar and pretzel).
How about a fraction for the part that is NOT cheddar?
When they are done have the students write comparative sentences about each cracker:
Pizza: I have more pizza fish than pretzel fish.
Students use rubber stamps to make fractional sets on a paper divided into 4ths. Label.
