Grade 5 · Math · Fractions
The fractions race: who gets there first?
An interactive lesson on a fraction bar, 12 questions
أ. سارة بنعلي
مدرسة أ
A student walks along a fraction bar, adding and subtracting to move, and finds out whether each step was right the moment they take it.
This page is exactly what a teacher's published work will look like. Only the teacher is not real yet.
What the student does
- 1
Read the bar
A bar cut into six parts, with a marker where the student currently stands.
- 2
Shade to move
They shade the number of parts the sum comes to, and the marker moves by exactly that much.
- 3
See the slip before repeating it
If they add the denominators, the bar redraws in twelve parts instead of six and they see for themselves what changed.
- 4
Try again, at no cost
The second attempt costs nothing. The point is a finished bar, not a graded student.
What's inside
- An interactive fraction bar the student shades with a finger
- A number line that appears for subtraction
- 12 questions marked the moment they are answered
Outcomes
Adds two fractions with the same denominator and writes the result in its simplest form.
Subtracts two fractions with the same denominator without subtracting the denominators.
Explains why the denominator stays as it is.
What the teacher focused on
They are not getting the arithmetic wrong, they are getting the denominator wrong. So I start at the bar, before the number.
Teaching strategies
- Concrete representation before symbolic
- The expected mistake, built into the lesson
- Immediate feedback with no mark attached
She kept the bar on screen for the whole activity rather than dropping it after the first question, because a student who loses the picture goes back to adding denominators by question three.
Questions from inside it
- 1Shade what 2/6 + 3/6 comes to.
- 2How much of the bar is left after we take 4/8 of it?
- 3Which of the two bars shows 3/5 + 1/5?
Curriculum
- Grade
- Grade 5
- Subject
- Math
- Unit
- Fractions
- Taught in
- Jordan
Where this lesson sits in the curriculum
The same lesson appears in these countries' curricula. One page, five paths to it.
When to use it
The explanation
Adding two fractions with the same denominator adds the numerators and leaves the denominator alone, because the denominator says how many parts the whole was cut into, and adding does not re-cut the whole — it changes how many parts we took.
Common mistakes it catches
The bar is still cut into six. Adding the denominators would mean re-cutting the whole, and nothing re-cut it.
The bar is full. Asking «how many whole bars?» gets there faster than the simplification rule.