Good ole fractions! We finally dusted these bad boys off again. Kui is pretty behind on fractions so I am making quite the effort to get her back into the swing of things. I think I was initially scared off from these when I was looking in the album. Not quite sure why. Maybe it is the endless amount of charts that need to be made for the fraction work. Who knows! Regardless, I am back at it making more and more charts to be used for this work. Kui was pretty excited to get a presentation today and worked very well. We have been working upstairs this week because Bubs has been sick and quarantined upstairs. I needed to stay close to hear him. It worked out though. We had plenty of space for all of the fraction pieces.
Kui finished up the presentations for adding fractions with the same denominators awhile ago so we just took a minute to refresh the concept. She picked up on the new concept pretty quick, however, we do need to dive back into the Least Common Multiple work so that she can be a little quicker in finding the common denominator. We will do that tomorrow.
Here Kui is working with the first problem in the album. I believe it was something simple like 1/2 + 1/4 =. She needed to get the denominator in the same "family" like all halves or all fourths. She looked at the fraction pieces and said, "How many fourths will fit in a half." This should come very easy to the child at this point and she quickly found out that 2 fourths fits into a half. So her equation changed to 2/4 + 1/4 = 3/4. She could easily push all of the fourths together now since they were from the same family. She worked on many simple examples like this today.
She also has this box of extra fraction pieces if she needs them. Sometimes the fraction insets are not enough. You can buy these plastic pieces here. I believe I got mine from Montessori Outlet, but for some reason that link was not working. They are a little pricey, but well worth it. I never did end up finishing mine that I started cutting 3 years ago. I just broke down and bought a set. They are going to be more precise than my cutting skills anyway!
Once we went through a few examples and she got the hang of it, I introduced one of the charts to her. This is a great visual to show how the fractions are changed to match the same family. 1/4 gets changed into 2/8. It is very clear by the color coding on the chart. Then you can add eighths with eighths.
She was very inspired by my beautiful drawing and coloring skills (NOT!!) and wanted to make her own chart. Here it is below.
It is actually a good review and practice for the child to do this. It allows them to color which is Kui's all time favorite thing to do.
Here is another chart showing 3 addends and how we exchange along the way to see them all in the same family by the last row. (Please remember that you can click on the picture to enlarge it.) I realized half way through that all of my fraction pieces would not fit and I had to tape on a bottom piece. Doesn't look the greatest, but gets the concept across. I love this one because it also shows how the fraction can end up as 9/9 or 1. This reminds the child to simplify the fraction when they are done.
Here is Kui's attempt. Can you tell her interest waned by the end? It was approaching recess and her brothers were already heading out. It is also a good reminder as to why making the charts is really the job of the teacher and not the child. It is too labor intensive for the elementary child. They have moved past this developmentally. However, I did let her do it since I was trying to follow the child.
I also started making her some equations that she can do on her own for extra practice for each operation. I still need to cut them out, but here is a picture for your reference. Tomorrow we will probably touch on a refresher for Least Common Multiple before we move on to subtracting different denominators. Plus, this teacher needs to get busy making the rest of the charts for this group! It was a good reminder to check the state of the colored pencils every so often as well. This child clearly needs a new set! I was using a red pencil today that was the size of my pinkie. Makes coloring nicely quite the challenge!
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