This week, we had some great maths PD with Jo Knox. She left us with some great ideas for teaching our learners from Year 5 through to Year 8. One idea she shared with us stuck with me and I trialled it with my class today. Below, I have explained the task:
Using arm motions, we represented a range of different fractions: 1 whole, 1/2, 1/4, and 1/8. Here are some picture representations I have created to demonstrate these different arm motions:
The students were extremely quick at picking up these 4 arm motions, and it did not take long for them to gain confidence in understanding relationships between them. After the students were able to quickly form the arm motions, they were told to get into groups of 3 or 4. I then called out fractions which they had to create using these four arm motions. This was a great way to see which students could understand these fractions and the connections between each other. This was a great way for the students to develop their understanding that half of a quarter was 1 eighth. This really showed when the students created 1 and 3/8, with only three students. It was really positive to see that many of the groups managed to solve the problem by creating 1 whole, 1/4, and 1/8. They could also confidently explain that 1//4 was the same as 2/8 by using these representations of fractions.
Later in the day, while teaching a maths group, I asked students what 1/4 of 1000 was. The students accurately responded with '250.' I followed this by asking the same students what 1/8 of 1000 was. Students were confused, until I linked them back to this above task. As soon as they made the connection back to 1/8 being half of 1/4, the students could accurately give me the answer, '125.' After seeing how engaged students were in this task, and how much they took away from this experience, I am interested in finding more of these types of interactive, engaging maths tasks.
NOTE: This is an activity I learned through a maths PD session. It is not an activity created/designed by me.
