| Teaching Students Fraction Concepts | ||||||||||||||
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| The eight files below are intended to provide an introduction to students in the use of the Fraction Bars model for illustrating the part-to-whole concept of a fraction, equality, inequality, and the four operations on fractions. These seven major fraction topics can be enlarged for a classroom wall-chart which will help students identify and discuss the big ideas being modeled in the games and activities. |  |
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| Usually instruction is centered around teaching rules for using fractions, but the purpose of the illustrations in the following files is to suggest ways to provide an intuitive understanding of fraction notation, equality, inequality, and the four basic operations. These illustrations will help show teachers how to make connections between the models and the algorithmns for learning about fractions. | ||||||||||||||
| Introduction to Fraction Bars | 5-Bars and Fraction Bingo (equality) | |||||||||||||
| Small Step Race (equality) | Super FRIO (inequality) | |||||||||||||
| Capture (subtraction) | Equations Game | |||||||||||||
| Fractions and Operations | Linear Model - Number Lines | |||||||||||||
| The eight files above contain comments and suggestions for teachers as well as tables from NCTM's Standards and NAEP's research results which document some of the common difficulties students experience in learning about fractions. Students may find such tables interesting. There are also several samples of student papers. Further samples and suggestions for writing in math are in the file Writing About Fractions.
The file Overhead Masters for Workshop can be used to make transparencies of the selected games and activities in these eight files. Transparent Fraction Bars are recommended for illustrating the games and activities. These can be ordered or produced from the abbreviated set of Fraction Bars masters. For further teaching suggestions and complete day-by-day lesson plans see Fraction Bars Teacher's Guide, and for worksheets and tests see Fraction Bars Resource Package. |
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