Lesson 12

The purpose of this lesson is for students to compare fractions in a way that makes sense to them, including by reasoning about the size of fractional parts, common numerators or denominators, or relationships to benchmarks such as \(\frac{1}{2}\) and 1.

Previously, students have investigated the relative sizes of fractions with the same numerator or denominator. They have also compared fractions to \(\frac{1}{2}\) and 1. In this lesson, they apply those understandings to compare a wider range of fractions.

Some students may make comparisons by writing equivalent fractions, which shows they are applying learning from earlier in the unit. It is not necessary to highlight this approach at this point, however. In the next lesson, students will take a closer look at how equivalence can be used to compare fractions.

Activity 1: The Greatest of Them All

• Each group of 2 needs 3 colored pencils (3 different colors).

Which questions did you ask today that were effective in prompting students to compare the size of fractions strategically or structurally? Which ones might have pushed them toward a particular method or process?