Easy to Make Fraction Wheels

Fractions are often a difficult concept for students to visualize.  Today I had the pleasure of working with a group of 5th grade students.  In order for them to show their knowledge of fractions, we spent 15 minutes creating fractions wheels. Below is a step-by-step guide on how to do this with your own students.

Materials needed: Cheap white paper plates, marker or crayon, scissors, ruler

First, have students completely color one of the plates.

Next, have them use the ruler to find the center point of both plates. This is a great time to introduce or review vocabulary having to do with circles such as "diameter", "radius", "chord", etc. 

When they have found the center of both plates, have them cut the radius of each plate.  

Finally, place one plate on top of the other and twist them so they interlock where they have been cut.  This will allow students to rotate the plates to create representations of different fractions. We spend a bit of time having them showing different fraction representations and explaining why they believed those representations to be accurate.

After spending some time exploring fraction concepts, students will use their creations to teach those concepts to other students around the world through short videos as part of the Distance Teaching Project. 

PAEMST Video Lesson

I promised that I would put this post up a while ago, and unfortunately it's taken this long to get around to it.  With planning for EdCamp NEPA, working to get the EdTech Chat 'n Chew Podcast up and running, connecting teachers through the Virtual Valentines Project, in addition to my other school responsibilities, things have been a bit crazy for the past few months.  It's been a good crazy, though.

So, here is the video lesson I submitted for my winning PAEMST application.  The idea for the lesson literally came to me in the shower the morning before I taught it.  I had actually recorded 2 or 3 lessons before this one, but never felt like any of them were what I wanted to show.  They were all really great lessons, but there was always one or two minor things I couldn't get over.  When this lesson came to me, I knew it was going to be the one I was going to submit.

I'm not one of those "plan everything meticulously ahead" kinds of teachers, even though I'm a "plan everything meticulously ahead" kind of guy in almost every other aspect of my life.  I plan vacations using a spreadsheet 11 months ahead, but I teach spontaneously.  If I get a good idea, we're throwing out whatever was planned for the day.  That's what happened here.

Since Kathleen Seagraves, our technology teacher who had been recording for me, was absent from school the day I taught this lesson I asked Jim Winagle, who was a long term sub at the time in our building, do the recording.

Anyway, to all those who are in the application process and want an example of a winning PAEMST lesson video, to those interested in finding more ways to incorporate whipped cream into your 5th grade math lessons, or those who really want to learn more about the formula for finding the area of a circle:  Enjoy.

I promise to share more about the planning of the trip to Washington DC in the next few days.