Whew, I am way behind on my blog posts. I’ve been so busy trying to get through parent-teacher conferences, cheerleading sponsor stuff, and Halloween. This post is how I teach finding part of a number.
First off, I have made (and am putting them on here for FREE!) some little tokens that you can use for this lesson. I am also giving you the envelope my students made and used to keep them in (just something neat for the kids, but not necessary). I made my original ones that I used in class circles. I learned the hard way that circles are much harder to cut out than squares. I made new ones for you, and made them squares. You can thank me in the comments. lol! Click here or on the picture below to get the download, and then I’ll tell ya what you do with them.
Give each student a paper and have them cut out the individual squares. Here is how you fold the envelope……..
Fold the two sides……..
Fold the larger side down first and glue the smaller side to the larger. Make sure not to get the glue where it will stick to the inside of the envelope…….
Fold and glue the bottom to the folded sides……..
Voila!!!! You have a super, cute little envelope for the students to put their little tokens in.
Here is how I teach “parts of a number”……..
Tell your students to get out six “tokens” and divide them into two groups……..
How many are in each group? They should have three in each group.
So we have two whole groups all together. We’ve taken six tokens and divided them into two groups. If we were talking about fractions, then we know that fractions are parts of a whole. So out of the six tokens, broken into two groups, there are three tokens in one group. So one of the two parts, or 1/2 of the six tokens, or 1/2 of 6 is 3. 1/2 of 6 = 3
Ask your students to count out twelve tokens, and divide them into four groups……..
How many whole groups do we have? We have four groups. What number is the whole? 12. How many tokens are in one of the four groups of 12? or 1/4 of 12 is? 3. So what would 2/4 of 12 be? 6. What would 3/4 of 12 be? 9. What would 4/4 of 12 be? 12.
I would work a few more problems like this until I know my students are getting the hang of it.
Now for the pictorial representation of it……..
It’s important to ask students how they would easily find how many would be in each of those groups. I always ask them what operation do you use to split a number into equal parts. Of course they should say dividing. I forgot to put it on the paper above, but I also put how many in each group. For example, on the first problem on the paper above, I would put 4 + 4 + 4 + 4. I then ask them an easier way to find that rather than adding. Multiplying is repeated addition. After a few examples, they should be able to connect that they divide the whole number by the denominator and then multiply by the numerator.
I want you to understand that while I show you guys how I teach, it is obviously not word-for-word how I teach it. I am showing you a rough draft of how I teach this stuff. I encourage you to read the posts, understand what I am doing, and make it your own. Customize it to your classroom and your students. My lessons change each hour sometimes, depending on the level of my students. I hope you found this useful. I would love to hear your reviews on this lesson if you use it!
Here is another FREEBIE that I had on a different post, but it is what I used for this lesson.