Create one example of using benchmarks or estimation and fractions (see Example 8-9 on page 186 in the Burris text) that you could use in your classroom. Don’t have your book handy? No problem! Here’s Example 8-9:
Class, we have been studying different countries. Look at the flags that we have hanging at the front of the room. Which flag is the flag of Italy? About how much of the flag of Italy is green? Which flag is Poland’s? How much of the Poland’s flag is red? How about the U.S. flag? About how much of our flag is blue?

In order to receive full credit for your post, you will need to provide at least one web link to an image.
View “Understanding Fractions” and “Just a Fraction” to see how British teachers are using plastic cups to model (addition and subtraction of) the benchmark fractions 1/2 and 1/4 to their students.
April 18, 2008 at 10:08 am
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/piechart/
I found this web site teachers can use to create just about any chart the choose with either the fractions or percentages they choose.
April 18, 2008 at 11:25 am
http://www.visualfractions.com/Identify_sets.html
This website is used for practice when working with fractions. It gives you pictures and asks what fraction of the picture are circles or squares. So you have to count all of them and then tell the fraction of either/or.
April 24, 2008 at 8:56 pm
http://www.kidsrunning.com/school/krschool0526fractions.html.com
Here is a website that teachers can use to teach fractions using games with their students.FUN!
April 25, 2008 at 1:00 pm
http://www.funbrain.com/cgi-bin/fob.cgi?A1=s&A2=0
This is a fun game teachers could use to help show equivalent fractions.
April 28, 2008 at 8:04 pm
http://www.jamit.com.au/htmlFolder/app1002.html
This website is a fun game you can play after practicing equivalent fractions. After teaching the lesson the student can practice playing a fun game!
April 28, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Those are all great links, but don’t forget to write an example that uses benchmarks or estimation and fractions. (Again, see the example given above, or consult Example 8-9 on page 186 in the Burris text.)
April 29, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Tony and Jenny go to Pizza Hut to get pizza. Tony wants Pepperoni and Jenny wants just olives. They decide to go half and half on an 8 slice pizza.
How much of it is olives? How much of it is Pepperoni? If Jenny only eats 2 slices of her 4 how much is that? If Tony eats 3 slices out of the total 8 pieces, how much is that?
April 30, 2008 at 8:06 am
This one is especially good for studying benchmark fractions: http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/fractionflags/fractionflags.html
An 8 3/4 foot board must be shortened to 6 1/3. How much must be removed?
April 30, 2008 at 8:15 am
Hambuger cost $2.48 per pound. How much will it cost to make 25 quarter- pound hamburger.
http://www.coolmath.com/fractions/index.html
April 30, 2008 at 10:13 am
http://teacherlink.org/content/math/interactive/flash/kidsandcookies/kidcookie.php
This website you can choose how many friends you want to share cookies with, and how many cookies you want to share. It is a really fun game. You can put the cookies on a cutting board and decide how you want to them. You then get to hand them to each friend. After you are done, it will tell you each fraction of the cookie you gave away, and then they eat the cookies! (You do have an option of starting over if you realize you messed up.)
My instructions using halves and thirds would include telling the students how many friends and how many cookies to use, to make sure they can deal with 1/2 and 1/3.
Choose six friends and 3 cookies. What fraction of the cookie does each friend get? Choose 3 friends and only one cookie. What fraction does each friend get?
April 30, 2008 at 11:07 am
This website gives students a clear view on understanding math, and makes if fun in the process.
Example:
Beth divides a chocolate pie into 6 equal amounts and Jenny divides an apple pie into 8 equal amounts. Both eat one piece of their pie. Who eats more?
April 30, 2008 at 11:08 am
Oops…here’s my website… didnt work the first time
http://www.coolmath.com/fractions/fractions-01-what-are-they-02.html
April 30, 2008 at 11:24 am
http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivitySearch.aspx
I think that this would be a fun site for students and helpful for the teachers.
You have 25 students in your class. You are all taking a quiz. If 10 of the students finish, how many are still taking the quiz? Write your answer in fraction form.
April 30, 2008 at 11:27 am
http://illuminations.nctm.org/
I think that this site would be fun for the students and helpful for the teachers.
You are in a class of 25 students that are taking a quiz. If 10 of the students finish, how many are still taking the quiz? Write your answer in fraction form.
April 30, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Our class is all set to decorate this years 4th of July bullentin board. We are planning on working in two groups. The boys are to put up 14 stars and the girls are to put up 20 pictures of the celebration. There are 34 total items to add for decoration. What percent are pictures and what percent are stars? Express your answer in fraction form.
April 30, 2008 at 9:54 pm
http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/721
This website is an article on related reading materials, and a quick and simple example of using a tortilla to “make a pizza” though I think it would be a wonderful idea for the students to make a REAL pizza. To do this I would incorperate a poll of the class to see what kinds of pizza. I would then take that in fraction form and apply it to the pizza. If half the class wanted peperoni I would say ok, half the pizza will be pepperoni…and so on. This could be used in groups of four or eight. Each student could then add thier own toppings and whenyou put thepizza together you coud see the fractions-How cute. You woudl have to cut out pizza shapes from construction paper if you didnt want to make the actual pizza.
May 1, 2008 at 1:10 pm
This site has a lot of fration practice, including proper, improper, equivavlent, addition, subtraction, etc..
“Fraction Practice” is perfect for working on estimation skills.
For our class project today, we are going to make a graph of all our birthdays. On the graph, we will place markers on the coresponding month of each child’s birth month. Then we will figure out what fraction of kid’s have birthdays in each month, and what fraction have birthdays in the first half of the year. We will see which month has more birthdays than the others, etc…
May 1, 2008 at 3:20 pm
http://www.helpwithfractions.com is a great site for teaching rules and definitions of fraction terms. Also http://www.aaamath.com ,
http://www.mathsisfun.com/fractions.html is great for an introduction to the basic benchmark fractions.
A large pizza has 16 pieces of of pizza. John and Sally both had 1/4 of the pizza a piece.How much is left when they are finished.
May 1, 2008 at 4:54 pm
http://www.learner.org/resources/series32.html
On this web site they give you several options to choose from that deal with just about any type of math.
We are going to use our octagon shape pattern blocks today, and I want to know how many fractions you can come up with using the other pattern blocks to break up your original octagon pattern block.
May 1, 2008 at 5:14 pm
(http://www.funbrain.com/fract/index.html leads directly to “Fresh Baked Fractions.” )
If you go to this web site and click on Fresh baked fractions, the students have to decide from four choices which one is not equivalent to the other three. If you get it right, they will add another piece of the pie to complete it.
I would have several pictures of pies cut into different amounts.
I want you to show me which pies are equivalent to one another. When you find the pies that are equivalent, I want you to write down the fraction that is represented in each pie.
May 1, 2008 at 7:58 pm
you and a friend are playing with plastic army men. you each have 30 men. 1/3 of your men and 1/2 of your friend’s have machine guns. how many
men have machine guns?
These are just some funny cartoons I found
http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/f/fractions.asp
May 2, 2008 at 3:13 am
Great job, everyone! Check out Dennis’ cartoon link, if you haven’t already done so. I think this one would make a great opening to a lesson on estimating fractions. You could cover up the 1/8, and have students discuss the fractions that would/wouldn’t make sense in the blank…
If you’re having trouble thinking of activities which use benchmark fractions, click here for a written unit on the subject. Or, click here for an interesting game (courtesy the Connected Math Project). The goal of the game is to create decimals or fractions which are as close to the target or benchmark decimal or fraction as possible.