fractions manipulatives

[withgreatpower]

DC2 (8) doesn't seem to understand fractions. So I bought some manipulatives (such as fraction squares and fraction tower equivalency cube.

Can anybody (maybe any teachers?) suggest any activities that I can do with DC2 to use these resources in a meaningful way?

Thanks!

Can DC do fractions of shapes? That comes before fractions of numbers. Can they colour 1/4 of a shape? 3/4? If you ask DC to give you half of their sweets can they do it? What if you asked them to share the sweets between 4 family members ie give a quarter to each person. Do they get the relationship between fractions and division?

Think you need to pin down a bit more closely what DC doesn't understand about fractions first.

Hi -

I don't have the expertise to comment on these particular resources, but don't they come with instructions? You would probably also find more info on-line if you have the time to hunt around.

These web sites have plenty of numeracy activities:

www.ictgames.com/

www.resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/index.html

And Khan Academy has lots of numeracy tutorial videos, and it is free to join, but I don't know much about their children's areas, except that parents can enroll their kids:

www.khanacademy.org/

If I find anything useful, I'll try and come back sometime.

Thanks for the replies.

To be a bit more precise, he can do questions such as:

1. Colour in 3/5 of this shape (shape is a rectangle divided into 5 equal slices)

1. What fraction of this shape is grey ( shape is a rectangle divided into 10 equal squares, 7 grey, 3 white)

1. what is 1/2 of 28 ( for example)

1. what is 1/4, 1/5, 1/8 of 40 (for ex.)

But he gets stuck with:

1. What is 3/5 of 25 ( we have gone through this many times, first you find 1/5, then yountake three times that - also, we have done this with 25 sweets, shared them equally into 5 pots, then took three pots... How many sweets do you have? He seems to understand, he can do a couple of questions on his own, but all this does not stick, and after a week, he can't do the same questions.)

1. Put the fractions in order, smallest to biggest: 6/10, 1/2, 2/5, 4/5 (I don't expect him to do a common denominator, but to draw a rectangle and divide it into tenths, fifth, etc and compare the fractions)

1. How many sevenths do you need to make a whole

I can never tell if he's just being lazy with some questions, or if he has a superficial understanding of fractions.

WOW that was long...

sounds like it would be well worth recapping tables and then inverse operations (division but in the same context that you did multiplication, so that the idea of dividing / sharing equally actually sticks in mind)
don't worry if all the aspects aren't consolidated at 8, there will be many chances to further your dcs knowledge and apply it to a variety of contexts.

What you're asking of him would not be expected of a year 3 child.

I don't have any APP grids with me right now, at 2am, so this is from memory and might be wrong, but for level 3 he should be able to recognise and record shaded fractions of a shape and of numbers. Recognising equivalents to 1/2 is also level 3.

Mixed fractions (ie 3/5) is level 4, as is equivalents for other fractions. Like a previous poster said, working with shapes is often easier than number. Children have to understand that fractions are a form of division first.

Asking him to order fractions by size, by first having to create the fractions, is a pretty hard skill.

It sounds like he's well on track for what he can do. If he's year 3 then he's doing very well for so early in the year.

DS will be 9 in 4 months and is the youngest in P5 (Scottish system) – equivalent to Y4 in England, I think. I think they are supposed to know how to do the fractions questions that I listed in my previous post.

I don’t care too much if he can’t do the questions yet, but I would like him to get familiar with the concepts involved in fractions by using the manipulatives that I bought. I think if he can see how fractions work with shapes, it will be more meaningful than if we just do workbook after workbook.

Level 3:
Use simple fractions that are several parts of a whole and recognise when two simple fractions are equivalent, e.g.

• understand and use unit fractions such as 1/2, 1/4, 1/3, 1/5, 1/10 and find those fractions of shapes and sets of objects

-recognise and record fractions that are several parts of the whole such as 3/4, 2/5

• recognise some fractions that are equivalent to 1/2

Level 4:
recognise approximate proportions of a whole and use simple fractions and percentages to describe these

• recognise simple equivalence between fractions, decimals and percentages e.g. 1/2, 1/4, 1/10, 3/4
• convert mixed numbers to improper fractions and vice versa

For this part of the school year, he should have some aspects of level 3, and by the end of the year he should be able to do all of those level 3 descriptors.

These statements come from APP, which divides people on how useful it is. I've pasted them here just as an indication for you- they're not gospel.

Also, the best way to teach fractions, in my opinion, is to do things practically.

Problem solving whilst baking, eating bars of chocolate etc. Far more interesting and relevant than working with plastic blocks. Fractions seem to confuse a lot of children, so make is as practical and fun as you can would be my advice.

Thank you, juniper9, for the information on levels and the fraction activities ideas. I guess you are right that chocolate is more motivational than plastic blocks!

I like Juniper's kind of maths. esp the chocolate (unluckily we have a healthy school badge so I have to make do with cutting fruit into the various fractions, gah...chocolate is sooo much better )

The National Strategies produced a booklet for teachers looking at all aspects of the understanding of fractions called What is a fraction?
which is an interesting and useful read.

negrilbaby, thank you for the link. The booklet looks very interesting! Any other resources you can suggest?