Stage 3 Thinking mathematically resource

Colour in fractions

Watch the video to see how to play

(From: D. Clarke and A. Roche, Engaging Maths: 25 Favourite Maths Lessons, 2014)

Transcript

Hello everybody, welcome back to having some fun with mathematics! I'm here again with Ayesha and Barbara. Hi guys!

Hello!

Hi Michelle!

We're going to play a game today called colour in fractions and sometimes you can play this game by yourself. Sometimes you can play competitively against someone else, and sometimes you can play where is it 2 teams of two. Today we were limited in our access to mathematician, so it's Ayesha and Barbara versing me today.

So we have our game board. We've got lots of different markers. We each have a pen and we have our fancy dice which you could also use spinner as well if you don't have these, so, let's play! Today we're playing a version of the game where we're each going to use the same numbers that role to see what happens with our our game. So what happens is I know this is going to tell me how much and this is going to tell me my unit size. So what we have here guys is 2 sixths, so now you can form 2-sixths on your board in any way. So you could do something like... we'll,, I'll let you work it out.

OK. What do you think Ayesha, should we colour in... these are sixths, should we in two of those?

Sounds like a plan!

So what I'm going to record here is what was rolled. And then we're going to shade 2-sixths.

So you guys had two 6-sixths as 2-sixths, and I had 2-sixths as 1-third. And I know they're equivalent 'cause this line down here shows me that 2 sixths is equivalent in value to 1-third. You guys can roll.

So we have, 2-sixths.So now, what should we do? Should we do what Michelle did last time? Or should we look for another way? I'm thinking we look for another way. If we do a line straight through, we can either do 1-third... or we can do this one here, which is twelfths. So we could do 4-twelfths.

OK.

All right, over to mathematicians to have fun too!

Collect resources

You will need:

one die labelled 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4 in one colour (or use a spinner)
another die labelled *2 ,*3 ,*4 ,*6 ,*8 ,*12 in another colour (or use a spinner)
a fraction wall (game board) in your mathematics workbook
coloured pencils or markers.

Two hexagonal spinners. One labelled with the digits 1,3,4,2,3,2 and the other halves */2, thirds */3, fourths quaters */4, sixths */6, eighths */8 and twelfths */12

$The fraction wall game board, a wall with 6 layers. The top layer is divided into half, 2nd thirds, 3rd quarters, 4th sixths, 5th eighths and bottom row twelfths. With a table labelled What I rolled and What I shaded.$

Instructions

Players take turns to throw both dice or have a spin on their spinners. They make a fraction, the first die or spinner being the numerator. They then colour the equivalent of the fraction shown. For example, if a player rolls a 2 and *4 (or spins 2 and quarters) then they can colour in:
- 2/4 of one line, or
- 4/8 of one line, or
- 1/4 of one line and 2/8 of another, or
- any other combination that is the same as 2/4.
For each roll or spin, the student should use a different colour pencil or marker.
If a player is unable to use their turn, they “pass.”
Players take it in turns to roll or spin and make fractions, marking them on their fraction wall. If the fraction rolled or its equivalence cannot be shaded, they miss a turn. This becomes more frequent later in the game.
Players are not allowed to break up a “brick.”
In finishing off the game, the player must have had 18 turns or have filled their wall. A larger fraction is not acceptable to finish.
The first player who colours in their whole wall is the winner, but the other player is encouraged to keep going (with the support of the first player) to fill their fraction wall, or the greatest number of wholes. If after 18 turns neither player colours in their whole wall, the player with the greatest number or wholes wins!

Discussion

If you played the game tomorrow, what would you do differently?
If you were giving some hints to a younger brother or sister who was about to play the game, what would you say to him or her to help them win?

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