Objective:
Child will be able to use bricks for beginning fraction multiplication.
Essential Question(s):
When multiplying whole numbers by a fraction, how can we visualize the mathematics?
Special Materials:
Dice, pencil and paper
Bricks Required:
1×2 bricks in three colors, 16×16 plates
Project Structure
Engage/Explain:
- Front-load fraction multiplication concepts.
Explore:
- Give child a handful of bricks, a 16×16 plate, and a pair of dice.
- Child rolls both dice to make a fraction multiplier, smaller number on top, then notes it on their paper.
- Child rolls one die to determine the whole number multiplicand.
- Child counts out 1×2 bricks to create their fraction: x number of color A for the numerator and then enough of color B to make the total for the denominator.
- Child continues counting out fractions until they have as many as the multiplicand, then counts how many of color A they have total.
- Child then groups as many of color C as color A, according to the denominator, to find the result of their multiplication sentence; they should reduce if necessary.
Elaborate:
- Ask child to create an explanation on how they are multiplying and visualizing the fractions so they can teach the process to others.
- Child should also explain the effects of multiplying by a number greater than 1 vs. less than.