Image of the Week: Go on a Fraction Hunt!

Go on a Fraction Hunt!

Earlier this year, we talked about how you can use Off You Go activities to build deep understanding of number. Then we were discussing whole numbers like 3, 5, and 8, but the same principle is true for fractions, particularly fraction benchmarks that everyone needs to know well and feel deeply comfortable with, like half, fourth, and third.

In this week’s image, we ask students, Where do you see half? We’ve selected this image because one way of thinking is that the glass is half full and another is that the glass is half empty (perhaps you’ve heard this one before?), or that someone has drunk half the milk. After discussing the ways that this image shows half, send students off to look for other representations of fourth in their world, whether in your classroom and school or in their own homes and communities. Those students who began to notice half in the tomato image a few weeks ago will be well positioned to see it here and elsewhere. The notion is that by looking for and collecting multiple representations of a concept, like half, students can deepen their understanding of what it means and the many ways it can look.

Students might gather:

• Any two objects, where one of them is half of the group
• A clock showing the time of 6 o’clock, or another arrangement where the hands make a straight line
• A container filled halfway to the top with objects
• A bulletin board filled halfway with art and half empty
• An egg carton filled with 6 eggs (half empty or half full)
• A student table in your classroom with four chairs where two have students sitting in it
• A snack halfway eaten

These ideas are just the beginning. The environment you allow students to explore will create different kinds of opportunities to find and represent half. We strongly recommend that you give students the largest possible space to explore to generate the most diverse collection possible.

When you gather again to discuss what students have found, this is the time to sharpen what half actually means. Expect that students will bring back examples that are and are not half, and the discussion is a space to figure out whether and why each example is or is not half. Some may be approximately half, others may be two rather than half. In the end, develop a definition of half as a class based on all the objects you agreed were half.

While this week’s image focuses on halves, you can do this same activity with any fraction or whole number that students can find in their environment. Build fraction understanding by trying an Off You Go activity with your students!

To multiplicity, cheers!

Jen Munson and the multiplicity lab group