Those Fantastic Fractional Parts

Here are some fun activities to help your students partition circles and rectangles into equal shares. In the process younger students will describe the shares using the words halves and fourths or quarters. 

Older students will divide objects into smaller shares using the words thirds and a third of, and eventually using smaller and smaller fractional parts.

For each student provide scissors, 2 graham crackers, 2 round crackers, a letter-size piece of paper, an envelope and a paper plate. If you like, bring a pie cut in half along with a knife to divide it further as you talk about various fractional parts.

Give each student scissors, 2 graham crackers, a letter-size piece of paper, an envelope, and a paper plate. Ask the students to cut the paper in half to form 2 equal shares (they can fold it first to form a cutting line). Ask them how many halves make one whole. (2)

Now have the students fold one rectangular shaped paper in half to form two equal triangles. Ask them how many triangular halves make a whole. (2)

Have the students sort the items by shape. Let them describe which are circles, which are triangles and which are rectangles. (circles = paper plate, round crackers; triangles = paper halves; rectangles = graham crackers, paper halves, envelope) 

Read more and download a free worksheet . . .

Download sample lessons from our new Common Core Teacher Editions at http://excelmath.com/downloads/state_stds.html.

You might also like these articles:

Falling for Math: Ten Frame Activities
Pumpkin Math: Subtraction
Letting Students Fail
Shaping Up with Math  

Bridging the Gap to Common Core Math

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Download sample lessons from our new Common Core Teacher Editions for Grades 1-6 at http://excelmath.com/downloads/state_stds.html

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