Learning About Fractions and Eating Them, Too

On a recent morning I gathered the first year students in my classroom to give them their first lower elementary presentation about fractions.  Some of my older students seeing me take the metal fraction insets and a bag of apples from the classroom smiled knowingly and offered to become a part of the group for the presentation.

Seated at the table the first year students immediately recognized the fraction skittles and metal fraction insets. They were familiar with these materials from their early childhood classrooms.

We used the fraction skittles first, talking about how first the whole skittle and then the skittle divided into two equal pieces. The students quickly volunteered that these pieces were called halves. We then talked about the skittles divided in thirds and fourths.

After we named these skittle pieces I introduced the terms numerator and denominator. The students learned that the denominator is the bottom number in a fraction and tells how many equal pieces the whole has been divided into while the numerator is the top number in a fraction and tells how many pieces of the whole we are talking about. 

After practicing placing fraction labels next to the proper skittle pieces we went on to doing the same thing using the metal fraction insets. The students enjoyed finding groups of fractions insets to match the labels.

As a final step in identifying fractions the students watched as I cut the apples and several oatmeal cookies into different fractional parts which they identified. Then came what the students said was the best part of the presentation – eating these tasty fractions!

Submitted by: Rhonda Reynolds- Lower Elementary Teacher at The Montessori Academy at Edison Lakes

Photographs provided by: Rhonda Reynolds