Lesson 5

The purpose of this lesson is for students to recognize that equivalent fractions describe the same point on the number line and to identify such fractions on the number line.

Prior to this lesson, students used fraction strips and tape diagrams to visualize and represent fractions that are the same size. Here they use number lines to do so. Students are reminded that equivalent fractions describe the same point on the number line, or are the same distance from 0.

To determine whether two fractions are equivalent, students rely on their understanding of fractions with related denominators (in which one denominator is a multiple of another). They practice thinking of certain fractions in terms of other fractions (for instance, thinking that they can split 1 third into 2 sixths, or 1 fifth into 2 tenths).

In the next lesson, students will be comparing fractions to \(\frac{1}{2}\) and 1, applying what they know about equivalence and distance on a number line. How did today’s work prepare them for that lesson?