Math is a subject that typically produces mixed emotions. And for my students, this is the case. As a teacher, I am constantly trying to think of new ideas and activities that will make the content not only more engaging for my students, but easier for them to understand and ideally, more enjoyable. For my lesson today, I decided to do something totally different than what the curriculum had planned. Sometimes, variation goes a long way and you can’t know if something is going to be successful or not unless you try.

In third grade for the past few weeks we have been learning about fractions. Equivalent fractions, splitting a whole into a equal parts, naming unit fractions, placing fractions on a number line; you name it and chances are we’ve probably done it or will be doing it at sometime in the near future. Up until today, students have had a lot of practice decomposing fractions. In simpler terms, when given a whole, they have to partition it into equal parts. However, today’s lesson was focusing on composing fractions. When given a unit fraction (1/6, 1/8, 1/12, etc), they had to compose the whole from the part they were given.

I modeled what I expected, gave them their supplies, told them what their groups were and got started. Each group was given a pre-cut colored shape with a unit fraction written on it, a piece of large black construction paper, and blue construction paper. They had to use the blue to make the extra pieces needed to complete their whole, then arrange them in a design on the black paper. It was a success! The students worked diligently in the ten minutes they had. As I circulated around the room, I was able to hear student driven conversations. In one group, members assigned roles to one each other right away. After ten minutes, groups had a chance to present their designs. It was awesome to see the students so excited and take pride in what they had created, and having fun with material!