Fractions Boot Camp Day 2

Today was a short class, but we worked on representing and comparing fractions using relational rods. We had a concept diagram, with a 1 being defined as 12 units long (a 10 rod and 2 1 rods). Students worked to represent each fraction in the wheel by comparing the lengths to the central fraction as a help.

We recognized that the numerator was the number of pieces we needed, and the denominator was the number of pieces that equalled the “1”.

We noticed that some of the fractions were equivalent lengths!

we had some groups wanting to try to do something similar with the pattern blocks, so we tried a different concept circle with that group.

At the end of class we looked a little bit at adding fractions together using the fraction strips.

we looked at writing fraction equivalents 2/3=4/6, and 7/3=14/6 etc.

we looked at questions like 1/3+5/6 and realized we needed to make the pieces all the same size before we could count them up. If we wrote 1/3 as 2/6 then we could add up 2/6 and 5/6 and get 7/6.

more concept circles to come tomorrow!