All week one child has been having real problems grasping fractions in Maths and I remembered a really good game on-line that might help. Luckily I'd stored it as a favourite on the classroom computer so a quick word to my class teacher and the child was whisked over to the computer.
The game is called Fraction Flags . Anyway thinking about what Andy said recently about "Can problem solving be taught?" I explained briefly that the challenge was to colour the flags half one colour and half the other. I didn't say how to do it at all and left him to get on with it.
Within five minutes he'd worked out how to use the game and moved on from doing the obvious (all one side green all the other side red) to making quite complex patterns. This involved him carefully counting the squares and working out how to even them up. He even worked out for himself how to use the white "paint" as an eraser so that he could correct errors. He also worked out that he could print the flags and soon he had a lovely collection. (I can feel Andy cringing at the thought of all that coloured ink!)
He proudly showed off his work to the class teacher - who was suitably impressed. We've been trying to get fractions across to him all week!
Tomorrow he's going to show the rest of his group how the game works, and then I'm going to challenge them to make as many different flags as they can, using all the levels of the game. We'll show the results in Good Work Assembly on Friday and I'll make a display of them.
We'll also challenge the more able group to come up with their own flags to show different fractions but they will be doing it by hand.
