As my first topic, I wanted to go over how to identify fractions. I recently was helping my niece with her math homework - which included work on identifying and adding fractions, and I realized that I need to review how to teach this to a student in a more efficient way.
I came across this page: https://www.k5learning.com/free-math-worksheets/third-grade-3/fractions-and-decimals/identify-fractions-color, which provides really great worksheets to identify fractions. For example, if there is the fraction is 3/5, there will be five blocks, and the student will be asked to fill in or color in 3 of those blocks and leave the remaining two blocks uncolored. This way, they can begin to identify what a fraction such as 3/5 looks like.
See below for a snapshot of the worksheet:
The worksheet looks like this once it is filled out:
My goal in identifying fractions was to figure out a way to better teach this topic to young students. I tried this with my preschoolers - how are much younger than the age group I would actually teach this topic to. However, it worked! What I realized is identifying fractions is just about counting - and if you can count, you can most likely identify a the beginning steps of a fraction. While adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions is much more complicated, my preschoolers were able to at least count out "3" and fill in 3 blocks, and leave 2 blocks uncolored. In this way, they too began identifying fractions (which is something that is introduced to most students in third grade!).
In my next blog post, I hope to re-teach myself how to easily add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions. For now, I'm glad I found a simple way to educate students on how to identify fractions using a visual method.
Wonderful. Thanks for sharing some resources and your experience using this in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteHi Prianka,
ReplyDeleteI think all children freak out when they hear fractions, especially the young children. Just the word alone is intimidating to them. However, the sheet you chose is a great asset to a lesson on fractions because it allows the children to obtain the conceptual idea of fractions and gives them a visual of what it looks like when completed in order to gain a better understanding.
Just a suggestion, maybe you can use your current topic of fractions in next weeks blog and tie it in to multiplication, addition, and subtraction. This way you are adding to previous knowledge.
Great job!!!
Best,
Nicole