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An Explorer lesson plan. Download a Claris Works or Acrobat file from the Explorer site. Also information on grades, availability, description, curriculum, process skills, author, and publisher.
Author: Joanne Caniglia
Grade Level: 5-8
Description: Students practice subtraction using a square diagram.
Objectives: To subtract fractions with like and unlike denominators.
Resources/Materials: Circle grid
Activities/Procedures:
- On poster board students are to draw a figure similar to the one below.
- Laminating the drawing enables students to write on it many times with overhead or dry erase pens.
- The four outer squares should contain a fraction. Instruct students to subtract the smaller fraction from the larger one and place the answer in the circle that appears as the midpoint of the two fractions in the problem.
- Students are finished when they come to the center.
Evaluation:
Students can check their work as they work backwards - starting in the center and adding the midpoint circle and the smaller of the endpoint circles. This process reinforces addition of fraction.
Follow-up Activities (Optional):
Students can find four different fractions to place in the corners that will produce all ones or zeros. The success of this activity is based upon a property called the Density Property for Rational Numbers. Ask students if they believe that it is true that between any two rational numbers there is another rational number.
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