Lesson 2

The purpose of this lesson is for students to make sense of non-unit fractions (including those greater than 1) that have denominators 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, and 12.

In the previous lesson, students made sense of the meaning of numerator and denominator in unit fractions. They identified fractions represented by diagrams, and partitioned diagrams to represent given fractions. In this lesson, they reason in similar ways—using numerical and visual representations—about non-unit fractions and fractions that are greater than 1.

Students are reminded of what they learned in grade 3: that a non-unit fraction \(\frac{a}{b}\) can be understood as \(a\) parts of a unit fraction \(\frac{1}{b}\), and that fractions with different numerators and denominators can be equivalent. Unlike in grade 3, the denominators they see here now include 5, 10, and 12.

As in the previous lesson, rulers can be provided to help students draw, extend, or align partition lines, but should not be used to measure the location of a fraction on any diagram.

• Each student needs access to their fraction strips from a previous lesson. 

Who participated in math class today? What assumptions are you making about those who did not participate? How can you leverage each of your students’ ideas to support them in being seen and heard in tomorrow’s math class?