In 5th Grade students will get into equivalent fractions. My 5th grader truly enjoyed doing the equivalent fractions. That was his favorite out of all the fractions he did. I used games, worksheets, and some cool websites to teach him equivalent fractions. I would like to share with you what we did. This may help you get your lesson plans together or give you some ideas on how to do your lesson plans.
On day one I explained to him what an equivalent fraction was. Then we went to kidsolr and I explained it to him while showing a graphic view. Then I used a worksheet from homeschoolmath.net. I wrote the problems on my dry erase board and when did each one of them together. After we did 10 equivalent fractions, I let him do 5 on his own. I wrote them on the board and he answered them. I don’t know what it is about my dry erase board. My kids want to write on it instead of writing on their paper. That was all we did for day one.
On day two I let him get on the computer and play a couple of games. I found a couple of great sites for him to play games on. Please look at the bottom of this article for the addresses. He went to Fun Brain and played the equivalent game there. Then he went to kidsolr and played their game. This is the site that I used to explain equivalent fractions in a graphic view. The last site that he played a game on was quia. He played the matching game on that site.
On the third day I gave him a worksheet to do. I printed off a free worksheet from homeschoolmath.net. You can change the options to make the sheets hard or easy. You can enter the amount of problems that you want displayed on the worksheet. When you create the worksheet, you can click the link at the bottom of the page to get the answer key. I would recommend that you change the numerator and the denominator to a lower number if you are going to use these worksheets. Every time you refresh the page it will give you a different worksheet.
On the fourth day we went over his worksheet that he had done on day three. Then I let him take problems from three different worksheets, find the answers to them, and then he put them on the board for me to do. I pretended not to know how to do them. So he explained them to me and showed me how to do them. I did this so that I could make sure that he knew what he was doing and how to explain it. Sometimes it is a good idea for the parent to play the student and the student play the teacher. This way you will know that they understand it.
On the last day I gave him a worksheet with ten problems for a test. He did great. Every couple of weeks I let him go to the sites that I mentioned to play the games. This way he doesn’t forget it as he continues to learn new fractions.
I hope my lesson plans will give you some ideas on how to can teach your 5th grader equivalent fractions. I have found that if you make it fun when they are not eager to learn, it will help out a lot. Games are a great way to help children learn.
