Feedback on Fractions

1) Identifying whether a fraction or a part is required.

Some students have difficulty identifying what the question wants, whether a part or a fraction. For example, if the question has a statement like" ____________of the figure is shaded." , this requires pupils to write a fraction; meaning there should be a numerator and denominator.

However, for questions which require a number for an answer, the questions will have the word pieces/parts in them for example
" ________ parts of the figure is shaded?"
(Refer to examples below)

Pupils wrote the numbers instead of fractions.











 














2) Unit Fractions

Unit fractions are fractions with 1 as their numerators. For example one- fifth, one quarter, one - half.

When comparing unit fractions, students can use this statement to guide them. "The larger the denominator,the smaller the unit fraction." Another translation will be "the more people sharing a cake, the smaller the portion each person will receive."

(taken from http://www.freewebs.com/workstattion/MATH/fractions/activities.htm)

From the figure above, one can see that the larger the denominator,

the smaller the portion of one unit is

3) Fractions that make a whole

From the example given (refer to picture below), the student is unable to see that 1 whole is actually the full fraction, in this case, 4/4. In order to get the fraction for the whole, one can retrieve the information by looking at the denominator of the other fraction given.

Therefore, the answer should be 1/4 and 3/4 make 1 whole (4/4).

 That's all!

Racial Harmony Day 2012!

Dear Parents,

Today is 21 July 2012, Racial Harmony Day.  It commemorates the anniversary of the communal riot that occurred in 21 July 1964. The children celebrated it in school yesterday. They were encouraged to wear their traditional costumes.

This year, the  children learnt about the chinese culture, particularly the Chinese Opera. It is a popular form of musical drama in the chinese culture. Masks are used to portray a character’s role.They were shown a variety examples of masks. Each main colour has its own meaning.

White: Sinister, evil, crafty, treacherous, and suspicious.

Green: Impulsive and violent

Red: Brave and loyal.

Black: Rough, fierce or bold character.

Yellow: Ambitious, fierce, cool-headed.

Blue: Fierceness, loyal and clever.

During social studies lesson, the students made the masks. 

As you can see from the picture, the students made a point not to use white colour on the masks as it represents bad character. There is one mask though, which looked as if white was used but the child stood on his ground claiming that it's light blue. J

Happy Racial Harmony Day everyone!

Fractions

Dear Parents,

For your reference.

The concept of fractions provide the children with opportunities to make sense and relate to the language and notation of fractions using everyday examples such as pizzas or birthday cakes that are round and chocolate bars that are rectangular.

Similarly, fractions doesn’t apply on round/ rectangular objects only, they apply generally to various types of shapes, including triangles.

Fractions are numbers; which tell us how much of a whole it represents.

For example; when a whole is divided into 2 equal parts, 1 out of 2 equal parts is represented as 1/2.

The total number of equal parts is called a whole and known as a denominator as for the number of the items cut/shaded/taken is known as a numerator.

Learning Outcomes:

·         Interpret a fraction in terms of equal parts of a whole

·         Read and write fractions

·         Compare and order

-unit fractions (same numerator eg 1/2, 1/3)

-like fractions ( same denominator eg 2/5, 4/5)

·         Add and subtract like fractions within one whole

*Students are not required to learn fraction as part of a set of objects (eg  of 20) as this will be dealt with in Primary 4.

Thank you