Lesson 2

In the previous lesson, students drew diagrams to represent a unit fraction of another unit fraction in context. The purpose of this lesson is for students to draw diagrams representing products of unit fractions and to examine the relationship between expressions and diagrams in greater depth. Students examine different methods for representing unit fraction products with a diagram and they interpret how a diagram represents a given expression.

This diagram represents both \(\frac {1}{4} \times \frac {1}{3}\) and \(\frac {1}{3} \times \frac {1}{4}\). In future lessons, this diagram will be used to represent multiplication expressions and equations because of its flexibility. 

Student generated diagrams may be different.

In this diagram, we see \(\frac {1}{4} \times \frac {1}{3}\). We would need to adapt the diagram to show \(\frac{1}{3} \times \frac {1}{4}\) more clearly. We could do this by extending the partition lines all the way across.