Fraction Action!

Is there ever a subject that just seems ever so daunting? For me, it's fractions... in third grade! You may or may not know, but we don't have a curriculum to follow. So, when planning units, it can be tough to know what to teach when. Luckily, my math coach approached me about coming in and doing a few lessons together. She has totally changed my outlook on math instruction. What you'll see here is minimal worksheets and a lot of collaboration... yes, about fractions! 

On day one of fractions, we gave students a Frayer Model.
First, the Frayer Model was modeled for students. Then, students were paired up and given a Frayer that already had a fraction in the center. My higher thinkers got a more challenging fractions and my lower kiddos got a simpler fraction. This is how some of them turned out!

After students finished their Frayer Models, they were given one sticky note. They walked around the room and look at other's papers. When they saw something that they did not agree with, they drew it and labeled it on the sticky note. Then, the kids placed the sticky notes on this piece of paper, and we projected it under the Elmo! The kids had such a great discussion. At the bottom of the page, you can see that sticky notes that had something in common were chosen for discussion.

The next two days were filled with these sticky notes... that is all we had to do (well, my math coach) to prepare for the lesson. The kids were given a scenario. Then, in their math journals, they worked on partitioning in order to give each person an equal amount. Again, we had discussions about each scenario as a whole class. Sometimes, students paired up with another group to share their strategies.

Sadly, I forgot to take pictures of their math journals (I'll add it in).

After students worked on their last partitioning problem, they got to make a poster. Here are a few examples.

After the kids made their posters, they shared them by explaining their strategies to the class. It did take time, but it was totally worth it.

After the students shared their posters, they came up with a list of things that should be on a fraction poster. This will be used in our future fraction lessons! :)

To assess, we used an exemplar. Exemplar's are an amazing way to encourage critical thinking skills, while giving students a chance to answer a problem in an open response type of way.

Some students could only come up with one strategy, while some other came up with multiple ways to solve.

I hope you got a few ideas from this post today! It's super easy... but, oh my gosh so effective. I am normally a very activity based teacher, and I think that comes from being in first grade for two years. So, this year, I've been working on switching gears to more lessons such as this one. Hopefully, I can keep it up! I love it! 

If you love this activity and you're interested in more open ended learning opportunities such as this, check out the whole unit!