Grade 5 · Math · Fractions
One cake, eight friends
A story read in one period, with one question a page
أ. ليلى بوعزيزي
مدرسة أ
A 9-page story in short sentences, where the fraction lives inside the events rather than inside an exercise. It is written at a Grade 3 reading level so it reaches the Grade 5 student who slipped at reading before he ever slipped at fractions.
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 page
Two or three sentences, and one picture carrying the same fraction the text just named.
- 2
Answer one question before moving on
One question only at the foot of each page, about what happened on that page and nothing else.
- 3
Keep track of what is left
A small bar at the foot of every page shows the pieces eaten and the pieces left, and it moves as the story does.
- 4
Reach the end unaided
The story ends at 8/8, and on the last page the student writes down how much each friend ate.
What's inside
- 9 pages, two to three sentences each
- One question at the end of every page
- A parts bar that changes with the events
- A new-words list, six words and no more
Outcomes
Reads a written situation and pulls the addition or subtraction out of it.
Says how much of a whole is left after a part is taken, without ever seeing the sum written in numbers.
Finishes a 9-page text without stalling on a single word.
What the teacher focused on
A student who cannot read the question is not getting the maths wrong. He never reached it. So I brought the reading down and left the maths where it was.
Teaching strategies
- Separating the reading load from the arithmetic load
- One question a page, never a page of questions
- The fraction inside an event, not inside an exercise
She kept the denominator at 8 from the first page to the last, and turned down raising the difficulty by changing the numbers. The story handles one thing: what it means to take a part and leave the rest. A moving denominator would have added a second problem for a student who has not finished the first.
Questions from inside it
- 1Sami ate 2/8 of the cake and Huda ate 1/8 of it. How much did the two of them eat?
- 25/8 of the cake was left, then a friend came and took 2/8. How much is left now?
- 3On the last page there is nothing left. Write the fraction that means nothing is left.
Curriculum
- Grade
- Grade 5
- Subject
- Math
- Unit
- Fractions
- Taught in
- Egypt
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
The cake is one whole, and cutting it into 8 pieces makes it no bigger and no smaller. Each piece is called an eighth, and 3/8 means three of those eight. When two friends eat two pieces and then one piece, the eaten pieces become three and the remaining ones become five, and the total is still eight because the cake itself never changed. That is the only reason the denominator holds still when you add and subtract.
Common mistakes it catches
The arithmetic is right and the question answered was a different one. Read the last sentence again on its own, and put the student's finger on the word «left» before they write.
Ask «how many cakes?», not «how many pieces?». The answer is one, and all eight pieces together are that one.
Zero is a fraction too. The denominator stays, because the cake is still cut into eight even when not one piece of it is left.