Monday, April 23, 2012

Dicey Fractions


What is it about rolling dice that kids love so much? I don’t know, but every dice roll activity I come up with my son loves. This dice roll was made to work on fractions, but incorporates so much more – counting, tallying, animals (i.e. mammals vs. non-mammals), and geometry (shape names, polygons, etc.)!

First we read Working with Fractions, a book by David A. Adler (who also wrote the wonderful book that taught my son all about roman numerals).


Then, I gave my son a fun die with six different colors, animals, and shapes. (I printed this on heavyweight cardstock, cut out, scored the lines with a straight edge and butter knife, folded, and glued the flaps.) 


With a special recording sheet in hand and the timer on our microwave set for 2 minutes, my son was ready to get rolling!

Download a PDF of the die and recording sheet I made here.

He rolled the dice for the entire time, making a tally mark in the boxes under the square that showed up on top of the dice with each roll. I reminded him “One, two, three, four, and five shuts the door” to help him organize his tallies in groups of five.



When the time was up, my son counted the tally marks in each box and added all of the numbers together (I helped). The total was the denominator (the bottom number) on the fraction answers at the bottom of the recording sheet.


To complete the fractions, he had to figure out the numerators (the top number). Several of the fractions required that he add number of rolls from different squares together.


This was good practice to understand what the numbers on a fraction represent and reminded my son about what makes an animal a mammal, which shapes are polygons, and the reinforced geometry vocabulary too!

4 comments:

  1. What a fun game - with so much learning built in!

    Thanks for sharing with Learning Laboratory at Mama Smiles =)

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  2. I love this idea for teaching about fractions. Good thinking with the dice roll, and the worksheet looks great!

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  3. This looks like a wonderful way to work on fractions!

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  4. I don't know how you do it, but you need to be an education consultant! You never cease to amaze me with your creativity. AND I LOVE that you make it free! God Bless you. My friend (29 year ol mum of two) went through the same treatments. The diet was really tough, but the isolation from her family was torture. I can only imagine. You are in our prayers. I know this is an older post, and by now you are probably 100% A-OK. God bless you just the same.

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