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Fraction Facts
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Abstract

This lesson was designed to review operations with fractions. The activities provide ample practice opportunities to reinforce the information from the discussions.

Objectives

Upon completion of this lesson, students will:

  • understand addition and subtraction of fractions
  • understand multiplication and division of fractions

Standards Addressed:

Textbooks Aligned:

Student Prerequisites

  • Arithmetic: Student must be able to:
    • add, subtract, and multiply whole numbers
    • work with simple fractions in lowest terms
  • Technological: Students must be able to:
    • perform basic mouse manipulations such as point, click and drag.
    • use a browser for experimenting with the activities.

Teacher Preparation

  • Access to a browser
  • pencil and paper

Key Terms

denominatorIn a rational number, the number below the fraction bar that indicates how many parts the whole is divided into.
fractionA rational number of the form a/b where a is called the numerator and b is called the denominator
numeratorThe number above the fraction bar that indicates the number of parts of the whole there are in a rational number

Lesson Outline

  1. Focus and Review

    Remind students what has been learned in previous lessons that will be pertinent to this lesson and/or have them begin to think about the words and ideas of this lesson. Review key terms:

  2. Objectives

    Let the students know what it is they will be doing and learning today. Say something like this:

    • Today, class, we will be talking more about fractions, and how to do basic math operations with them such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
    • We are going to use the computers to learn about fractions, but please do not turn your computers on or go to this page until I ask you to. I want to show you a little about this activity first.

  3. Teacher Input

  4. Guided Practice

    Open your browser to Fraction Four in order to demonstrate this activity to the students.

    • Make sure the students are comfortable with how the game works before letting students work on their own.
    • You may want to have students take turns giving answers to the problems and work through one or two games as a class until students are ready to try it on their own.
    • Make sure that students select addition/subtraction and multiplication/division problems only when they set up the game.

  5. Independent Practice

    Allow the students to work in groups of two to play the Fraction Four game. Monitor the room for questions and to be sure that the students are on the correct web site.

    You may want to pair the students according to ability level so that students don't consistently win or lose their games.

    • You also may want to monitor the time limit student set for the game. You can either assign students a time limit according to their ability level or instruct students to use no time limit.

  6. Closure

    You may wish to bring the class back together to discuss any problems that were especially hard for students to solve. You can also use this as a time to have students share different methods they used to solve the problems. Potentially, the class could create pro/con lists for the different methods of solving these problems. Once the students have been allowed to share what they found, summarize once more the main points of the lesson.

Alternate Outline

This lesson can be rearranged in several ways if there is only one available computer:

  • Have students complete paper worksheets of problems with fractions and use Fraction Four as a reward for two students at a time who have showed proficiency in solving the problems on paper.
  • Alternatively, select students who need additional practice to use the game. Teams of one strong student and one who needs help work well with this activity so that the more advanced student can help the other student with difficult problems.

Suggested Follow-Up

After completing this lesson, several lessons could be tackled. For example:

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