Fraction Activities

During the school year I feel like I am scrambling to get everything taught before state testing. It seems like we just don't have enough time to cover all of the curriculum, so we are a mile wide and an inch deep! We were in such a rush to get through multiplying and dividing fractions, that I decided to go back and review those with the students before they move on to 7th grade. I decided to make some games/activities for the students, and I'm so happy with that decision. When the students are competing against each other, or there is some type of fun game involved, or when they get to work together in groups, the morale of the classroom changes entirely. So here is a breakdown of the activities going on in my classroom lately!

First up: Fraction-Opoly
Items Needed: Game Board (hand-made)
                         Answer Key (optional and hand-made)
                         Directions (hand-typed)
                         Dice
                         Index Card (to keep score on)
                         Game Pieces (I used coins-quarters, pennies, nickels, dimes)
                         Scratch paper and pencil for each student

Here are the directions that I have typed for the students to follow:
1. Put all game pieces on START
2. Roll the dice. Players go in order based on their roll from highest to lowest.
3. P1: Roll the dice and move that many spaces around the game board. All players must answer the question that P1 landed on to ensure P1 got the correct answer. When you are finished answering the question, make sure the answer you got is located on the Fraction-Opoly Answers page. If P1 got the answer correct, they receive 1 point. If they got it wrong, they receive no points.
4. Repeat step 3 with P2...
5. Each time a player passes START they receive 5 points.
6. Keep track of your scores on the index card provided.
7. At the end of the time period, the player with the highest score wins.
8. If you land on a question has already been solved, you must be able to find it on your scratch paper in order to receive that point. If you cannot find the question on your scratch paper, you must re-solve the problem.

I had the students play in groups of 2, 3 or 4 and all seemed to work just fine.

Next Up: Fraction Two-Ways
These activities came from "Developing Mathematical Fluency" Grades 5-8 by Grayson H. Wheatly. There are several awesome activities from this book, this is one of my favorites.
Items Needed: Fraction Two-Ways Worksheet laminated
                        Dry-erase markers
                        Erasers (I use baby socks)
                        Scratch paper and pencil

In this activity, the students have to be flexible on when to multiply or divide the fractions. And because the answers have to be correct going from both left to right and top to bottom, they can basically self check themselves. Having the students replace the word "multiply" or "times" with the word "of" really helped them in this activity. I was really impressed with my students mathematical thinking during this game!

Last Up: Fraction Memory
I just created this game similar to the game Memory that I'm sure everyone has played as a kid.

 

Directions Card

Items Needed: 40 index cards (2 different colors) - I cut normal sized ones in half
                             -20 index cards with equations on them
                             -20 index cards with solutions on them
                        Directions Sheet
                        Scratch paper and pencil 
I had two different colored index cards, 1 color has an equation and 1 color has a solution. Here are the Directions that I typed for the students:
1. Put all pieces face down, but group them by color.
2. The player whose birthday is next goes first.
3. P1: Flip over 1 card from each color group. All players solve the equation and see if P1 got a match with the answer card that is flipped over. If P1 got a match, they keep both cards and go another turn. If P1 did not get a match, flip both cards back over and continue the game.
4. Repeat step 3 with P2...
5. At the end of the game, the player with the most cards wins.
Hint: Flip over and solve the equation before you flip over a card from the solution side. That way, if you get a solution you have seem before and can remember where the card was placed last, you have a better chance of getting a match.

The students really seemed to enjoy all 3 activities and I was amazed at the amount of scratch work that each student had on their paper...

This was about half way through the hour and look how many problems they have solved! I can barely get them to write their names on their papers some days!

Hopefully if you are a teacher, this post will inspire you to create some games for your classroom! It makes the day go by so fast and I guarentee the students will put forth more effort...towards the end of the year, we are lucky if are students hear 1/4 of what we say, so have fun and play some games!!