Saturday, February 1, 2014

A Little Fraction Freebie

Just droppin' in to share a little fraction freebie. In second grade, the CCSS states that students should be able to partition shapes {rectangles and circles} into halves, thirds, and fourths. I whipped up this quick craftivity to give my kiddos another opportunity to reinforce the partitioning concept. Who else thinks partitioning is a difficult word for second graders to understand? They get the splitting or dividing concept, but the word partition leaves my kiddos saying *huh?*. Anyways, I digress, back to the freebie.


So, I had my kids cut out their circle and rectangle and glue one on one side of the construction paper and the other on the other side. They glued the math prompt below their shape and filled in the blanks. After the fact {Dang, I hate when that happens!}, I realized I should have written the math prompt in a way that kids could use the word halves, thirds, or fourths. I'll do it that way next year, but I did include that version of the math prompt in my freebie to y'all! 

Not only did they practice partitioning their shapes, they started to pick up on more advanced fraction skills. I told my kids that if they share their pizza, cake, or whatever, that means they have to give themselves a piece, then write down the names of the other people they would share it with. My kids noticed that if they divided their shape into fourths, they could only share it with three other people because they kept a piece for themselves. So, we then started to talk about how they took one fourth of their food, and they only had three fourths left to give. I love when their observations lead into deeper conversations about whatever concept we are learning about! Love those little smarties of mine!

If you think you can use this in your room, go and grab it here! Happy Saturday friends!