We were mid-lesson and I was about to pull out a worksheet that I had pre-made for my students. (You can purchase that worksheet and supplemental task cards here). But I made a teacher-thought-out (split second) decision to just use one more hands-on activity before we moved to paper pencil. Previously we had used a whole group lesson, several videos, and a hands on folding paper activity in order to address fractions. 
Searching around the room, I grabbed some white paper and made a chart for my students to organize on. I pulled down the 1lb bag of skittles from my desk, and prepped my students for the activity.
Using my silliest voices, I announced the directions to my students. From hick-country to rapper I explained how we would proceed with this activity in order to gain a better understanding of fractions. We would not be able to eat our skittles until I gave them the “go-ahead”. (Kicking myself for not getting a cool video of me doing this..their reactions were quite hysterical.)
I distributed the quickly made charts, and then handed each child a handful of skittles (while continuing to use my silliest voices). ALL of my students were able to refrain from eating their skittles until I gave them the green light. (insert praise hand emoji.)
The instructions were:
- Find total number of skittles
- Document total of each number
- Using a dry erase marker, create a fraction to show each color.
We will follow this activity up using this activity and task card set.
My students absolutely loved the activity. It was teacher data friendly, since I just walked around and noted whether or not the child understood where the part and whole went when forming a fraction.
Have you ever made a lesson mid-day, because you see that your students just aren’t ready to move on to what is planned?
Until next time,
That Teacher Wife, Addie
You can tell from this picture that some of my students didn’t quite get the concept of gathering information to use in the form of a fraction just yet.
Addie Williams 