Parent/Child activities
Here are some fun activities to practice mathematical literacy with your student using real world situations.
How many fractions does it take to bake a cake?
While the title of this activity suggests cake, you can cook or bake with any recipe and have fun with fractions along the way.
- Ask your student to read the recipe and let you know what ingredients and how much of each you will need to make your recipe. As you compile your ingredients, ask you child whether or not they think you have enough of each ingredient? This allows them to practice their estimation of fractions.
- Gather a variety of measuring cups and spoons. Leave out the usual 1 cup , 1 teaspoon, and 1 tablespoon measures.
- Read through the recipe. Have your student measure out the ingredients using other measuring cups. You can guide them through the process by saying something similar to "We need 1 cup of flour, but don't have a 1 cup measure, how many 1/4 cups will we need to make 1 cup?" This helps solidify fractions as parts of a whole while making them as relevant as a freshly baked cake.
- Enjoy your recipe one fraction at a time!
Find it Fractions
There are so many fractions in the world around us. Coins are a fraction of a U.S. 1 dollar bill, measuring cups are parts of a whole, pizza is cut into 8 equal slices, and the list goes on. Have a fraction scavenger hunt. Whoever can find the most fractions wins the game. You can make it as specific as "find an example of 1/4, 1/2, and 1/8" or as general as "find fractions." This activity can stand on its own or follow reading a book on fractions. Finding fractions in the real world helps raise student's awareness of fractions in every day life.
Fraction War!
Write fractions from 1/1- 12/12 on 60 index cards.
Shuffle and deal the cards. Each player places their cards face down in a pile in front of them. Both players turn over their top card at the same time. The player whose card has the larger fraction wins both cards. The goal is to get all of the cards. If players turn over equivalent fractions, there is a fraction war! Each player places three new cards face down in a row and the fourth card face up. The player whose card that is face up has the larger fraction wins all eight cards played in the war on top of the two cards played before the war. The game ends when one player has all of the cards. This game is all about comparing fractions, you might want to keep a piece of paper and a pencil ready in case your student wants to draw a picture or practice a strategy to compare the cards.
*This game comes out of a book "Fabulous Fractions: Games and Activities That Make Math Easy and Fun" by Lynette Long. This book also contains many different fractions activities for you and your student to enjoy.
Shuffle and deal the cards. Each player places their cards face down in a pile in front of them. Both players turn over their top card at the same time. The player whose card has the larger fraction wins both cards. The goal is to get all of the cards. If players turn over equivalent fractions, there is a fraction war! Each player places three new cards face down in a row and the fourth card face up. The player whose card that is face up has the larger fraction wins all eight cards played in the war on top of the two cards played before the war. The game ends when one player has all of the cards. This game is all about comparing fractions, you might want to keep a piece of paper and a pencil ready in case your student wants to draw a picture or practice a strategy to compare the cards.
*This game comes out of a book "Fabulous Fractions: Games and Activities That Make Math Easy and Fun" by Lynette Long. This book also contains many different fractions activities for you and your student to enjoy.
The cutting edge of Fractions
Pies, cookies, cakes, pizzas, tires, beach balls, they can all be cut into fractions. This activity can be done with paper cut into 6 equal sized circles or 6 paper plates. You will also need crayons, markers, or colored pencils, and a pair of scissors. Have your student color each paper plate to look like a different circular object. Keep one colored circle in tact. Have students cut one of their circles in half, another circle into thirds, the next in fourths, and the last two in fifths and sixths. See how many different ways you can cover the whole circle with the fraction pieces (ex. 1/2 and 2/4s = 1 whole). Keep a record of your combinations. This can even be competitive. See who can find the most combinations to make 1 whole.