Fantastic Fractions

Well, summer is 7/12 of the way over and soon kids will be back in school and crisp evenings will be here.  Summer is a time my family and I bake and cook a lot.  Extra time allows us to try new recipes and make triple batches of chocolate chips cookies for family gatherings.  Baking and cooking involve measuring ingredients and knowing a thing or two about fractions.  Here's a video I found that explains how to cut a recipe in half. 

I think fractions are important to understand and kids as young as kindergarten can get the basic idea of fractions.  My god-daughter is five and she is so excited to go to kindergarten this fall.  I tricked her with a fraction question yesterday.  We were having cake at a baby shower and I asked her if she wanted 1/2 or 1/3 of a piece of cake.  She said 1/3 and I asked her why, she said because 3 is bigger than 2.  I took a minute to draw her a picture of a cake, divided it into 2 pieces and then I drew another picture of a cake divided into thirds.  Once she saw the picture she giggled and said, "I want that piece" which was the 1/2 piece not the 1/3 piece.   

We all had whole pieces of cake but talking about fractions with a kindergartner was enlightening.  My friends and family are not surprised by my random math tangents anymore.  Taking math classes this summer has provided many teachable moments for me and my family.  Math is all around us and whether it is cooking, shopping, saving, sharing or measuring it is important to have basic math skills.  We could have some funny tasting cookies if the recipe was not tripled or doubled correctly.     

 

Here's a fun fractions jeopardy game to try with a class.  You can have teams and ring in when someone has the answer.

Check out this site for more on fractions.    

How Tall Am I?

Do you have a spot in your house where kids have been measured and their heights recorded for years?  Maybe it is on a special piece of paper, behind a door or on a wall.  Kids love to see how much they have grown and will measure everything in sight when given the opportunity.  Formal and informal measurement are part of every math curriculum.  Informally measuring with arm span, hand span, markers, crayons, paperclips, these are all ways to get kids measuring and thinking about why we have universal units of measurement.

I have worked in classes where first graders measure each other using blocks, string and post-its.  Teachers provide them materials to measure with that they do not normally associate with measurement.  Throughout the year they update and see how much they have grown.  Maybe it is only half a post-it or maybe it is two Lego's.  The learning that takes place through the exploration is beneficial to build their background knowledge.      

The video below shows students using non standard units of measurement to measure themselves.  The teacher asks some great clarifying questions about units of measurement and what they estimated before they began measuring.  I think the video shows the enthusiasm young kids have when they get to explore with math concepts.  Math can be fun and exciting when given the chance to try new ways to measure.