Student Lesson: Crafting With Care

Play the video “Jonah’s Hands.” Then, before or after reading the article, spark a discussion based on the following questions:

• What are some things you can do or make with yarn?
• Have you ever helped others in your community or in another state or country? Explain.
• How are patterns involved in designing or making clothes?

• How can we use mathematical models to help us solve a problem or explain our thinking? (Answers will vary. Possible answer: Models can help us visualize the problem. By seeing or drawing a model, it may help us think of a strategy to use to solve a problem.) We can use models to represent fractions of a set.
• How many students are in our class? (Answers will vary.) Today, our class will represent a set, or whole. This is the bottom number of our fraction, the denominator.
• Have students look at the color of the shirts they are wearing. How many students are wearing a blue shirt? (Answers will vary.) This number represent the part, or the top number of our fraction, the numerator.
  
• Write the number of blue shirts worn by students in our class as a fraction. The numerator and denominator are separated by a fraction bar. (Answers will vary.)

• What does the 3 represent in the fraction ²/₃ ? (The denominator; it shows the total number of yarn balls.)
• How many yarn balls are blue out of the total number of yarn balls? (1 out of 3) What fraction is that? ( ¹/₃ )
• Does it matter whether you write the numerator before you write the denominator? (No, it does not, but the numerator is always the top number above the fraction bar)
• If we added one more blue yarn ball to the set, how would your fraction change? (You would have ²/₄ or ¹/₂ of each yarn ball color in the set.)

Have students complete problems 1 through 4 on page 5 of the article.

Skills Sheets: Level Down: Name the Fraction (3.NF.A.1) | On Level: DynaDash: Fractions of a Set (3.NF.A.1) | Level Up: Fraction Match (3.NF.A.1)

SEL (Social-emotional learning activity/prompt): Jonah said that crocheting helps him focus. As a class, discuss the following questions: What activities or strategies can help you stay focused? How can you incorporate more of these activities or strategies into your weekly routine?    

Dynamath@Home: Have students gather sets of 5 to 10 items from around their home such as LEGO® bricks, puzzle pieces, and marbles. Have students sort the items to write out different fractions based on their color, size, or a different attribute.