Lesson 1

The purpose of this lesson is for students to be introduced to fractions as numbers we write to describe the parts of a whole that has been partitioned into equal parts.

In previous grades, students partitioned circles and rectangles into two, three, or four equal pieces and described the pieces as “halves,” “thirds,” and “fourths.” They used the more concrete term “pieces.”

In this lesson, students extend this understanding to partition rectangles into six or eight equal parts and describe the parts as sixths or eighths. The term “parts” is used in these materials moving forward, but students recognize that “pieces” and “parts” are interchangeable and can use either one.

In the lesson synthesis, students learn the fractions \(\frac{1}{2}\), \(\frac{1}{3}\), \(\frac{1}{4}\), \(\frac{1}{6}\), and \(\frac{1}{8}\) as the numbers used to represent the parts described as one half, one third, one fourth, one sixth, and one eighth.

• Create a set of cards from the blackline master for each group of 2.

• Each student needs 4 copies of the rectangle from the blackline master.
• Have extra rectangles available for students who need more than one try to fold the rectangles into equal parts.
• Create poster for synthesis:

In grade 2, students learned to partition rectangles and were introduced to halves, thirds, and fourths. How did they leverage their prior experiences as they were introduced to fractions in this lesson?