Umamah Learning Academy: Fractions

Showing posts with label Fractions. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Fractions # 4 Measuring Water

MEASURING WATER

WITH MEASURING CUPS

Honestly! This post has been in drafts for the longest time. My apologies. This was a very simple and effective way to reinforce our previous fraction lessons. I got 4 small, 1 cup measuring cups and 1 big, 4 cup measuring cup from the $ store.

This is how we did this activity

Fill 2 cups of water in the big measuring cup
Pour water in one of the small measuring cups upto the 1 cup mark
Look into the big cup and see how much water is left. Make the child observe. (Answer =1 cup, 2-1=1)
Now pour water in the 2nd small measuring cup upto the 1/2 cup mark
Again, look into the big cup and see how much water is left. Make the child observe. (Answer =1/2 cup, 1-1/2=1/2)
Next pour water in the 3rd small measuring cup upto the 1/4 cup mark
Once again look into the big cup and see how much water is left now. Make the child observe. (Answer =1/4 cup, 1/2-1/4=1/4)
Lastly let the child pour water back and fourth to all measuring marks and discuss what they observe

I let Lil Muallim # 2 then play around with the cups pouring back and forth. I let him do it just visually till he really got it !

Now playing with water is fun any time.... and then when Ummi not only let's you play with it in the study room, but actually set's up a tray for you to do it. rest assured they will come back to it again and again Alhumdolillah

Finally once I felt he saw the relation in his measuring and fractions, I made him write do it and then write in it his Math Notebook.

His observations......

A lesson well learnt Alhumdolillah !

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Fractions # 3 Toys full of Fractions

FRACTIONS IN TOYS

As much as the concept of fractions became clearer and solid for Lil Muallim # 2 in our past Fraction activities, ( See post Fraction #1 and Fraction # 2) the following really sealed it in his mind. Not only did he "Get it" but thoroughly enjoyed it Alhumdolillah.

I asked Lil Muallim # 2 to take out any of his favorite toys. Well what do you expect with boys.........he got his soldiers. :) Then asked him to separate those that are the same size and color and count them all.

We got 15.

Next I asked him to separate these out according to their different positions..........

Finally I made him trace out the shape of the soldier to show which fraction belonged to which position.....He loved tracing the soldiers so much and kept saying " This is so FUN!" woohooooo!!!!!

Now who would want to stop after so much fun! (wink!) So then he got the following out:

and did.......

Infact..... Next morning I found him doing fractions with his toy planes on his own without my even telling him to! What else does an MOTL mom want?

Alhumdolillah!

Fraction # 2 Fruity Fractions

Fractions in Fruits

Okay as mentioned in Fractions # 1 post, fractions in slices of apples or even oranges is quite obvious. We had a cool MOTL moment sometime back with fractions.

This may sound silly or very obvious math to some but for us it was a eureka moment! We did fractions while eating a grapefruit, with Lil Muallim # 2 the other day.

Once we cut the grapefruit, we counted the sections in it there were 9. So on a paper I drew a one whole circle divided it in half, then we wrote the fractions for the two halves. Then we drew one half separately and wrote the fractions, each with the numerator missing,

but the denominator as 9.

As my son ate each section he kept telling me 1 out of 9, 2 out of 9, 3 out of nine.......... and so one. Then we did the same with the other half and then added the fraction too for FUN!!!! (grin)

We didn't take pictures of the grapefruit at that time but this what our paper work looked like.

A few days ago we repeated the activity with Lil Muallim # 2 fillingteh sheet himslef and Lil Muallimah eating. This time the Grapefruit had 13 sections. See pictures below:

This activity really cleared the concept in my Lil Muallim's mind Mashallah!

Next step we took to something even more exciting......... See next post..... Fractions # 3

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Fractions # 1 Introduction

Introducing Fractions

This post has been long due and is about something I did early last year with Lil Muallim # 2. Before formally introducing fractions to kids I think we introduce it in so many ways in our daily life.

We've all heard the following in our homes...

"I don't want this cookie it's broken in half!"

"Two slices out of the eight are mine!"

I want one whole whole roti"

My point being the concept was already there. Now there was a need to look at it mathematically. I tried the same thing with Lil Muallim # 2 taht I had done with Lil Muallim # 1, a few years ago.

I took some scrap paper and folded them in halves and quarters.
Then I asked him how many parts the paper was divided in?
Each time he counted and answered accordingly
I then wrote the fractions on each half for him to show how each part was a fraction of the whole.
He then practiced coloring fractions on various worksheets I found online as well as in his math notebook.

Fractions worksheets I used:

My favourite was :

Worksheet Works

We also used:

tlsbooks Select Fractions worksheets

math.about.com

creating pizzas making fractions

slicing a pie

The other day, we repeated the activity. This time round I made him fold the paper and make different fractions.

He made...... 1/2, 1/4, 1/3 and 1/8

Then he asked for more paper saying.....

"I want to try making bigger fractions"

Once he was done folding he opened the folds excitedly and counted how many parts he got each time. I loved the fact that without realizing he got his answers fast by doubling and skip counting, showing multiplication readiness.

This time he got.......1/6, 1/10, 1/12 and 1/25

In fact, that whole day he kept folding paper from time to time, trying to make smaller and smaller folds. In the end, he was quite pleased with himself for making:

1/28, 1/32 and even 1/50 :)

Mashallah!