Ordering Pizzas: Fractions Greater Than One on a Number Line

       When changes were made to our math curriculum we were given a completely new math program.  In looking at the different skills, I knew that I was comfortable with most of them, but the idea of teaching so many fraction skills to third graders blew my mind! We used to teach BASIC fractions.  We taught numerators, denominators, shading in fractions, parts of a whole, parts of a set, and that was about it. Now we cover all of those skills within the first week, and then we dive MUCH deeper into fractions.        
           As we got into it, one of the things that seemed tricky for my students was teaching fractions greater than one (whole).  We conquered this by using pizzas and pies as our examples.  I love to tell stories, so I usually tell a loooooooong story about my family coming over for pizza.  I pretend that my students are my family and I ask them what kind of pizza they like and how many slices they would eat.  As I go from person to person, I illustrate their pizza slices on the board.  Once I fill up one pizza, I pretend to panic and ask my students what I should do next?  How will we ever feed my sister her 5 slices of pepperoni?!  The kids giggle and then start yelling out suggestions.  Eventually I agree with them, that I’ll have to order more than one pizza.  It is important to go through this process so that even my most struggling learners can see that they have “eaten” fractions at their own house, with their own families.  EVERYONE has had times where they have ordered more than one pizza!  
       We leave the illustrations on the board for reference, and then the next day we work our way through it again…different kids, different toppings, and different number of slices.   I wanted to really drive the concepts home…and I needed a project.  Something that was engaging and helped solidify the concepts.  I stumbled on this pizza fraction resource from Amy Lemons at Step Into Second Grade.  This was geared toward second grade and the more basic fraction skills.  I needed to make some changes to meet our curriculum and more importantly, fractions greater than  one.  
             I decided that I could use her materials (because they are awesome) and just take it to the next level!  My students each made 2 pizzas.  They could choose how many slices they wanted to have on their pizzas (I copied a certain number of each type (halves, thirds, fourths, sixths, and eighths) so that my groups would be even later.  Students could pick any combinations of toppings, but the rule was each slice could only have one topping on it.  Once they completed their pizzas, they worked within groups determined by how many slices were on their pizzas (halves, thirds, fourths, sixths, and eighths).  
           First they had to tally all the slices and toppings.  So as a group they had to look at how many pepperoni slices the whole group had, how many onion slices, how many pepper, and so on.  Once they came up with their tallies, they had to put these numbers into fraction form.  The important thing was the use of improper fractions.  
         Once students did this, they used strips of chart paper to plan out and draw a number line.  This was where I was truly able to see who understood the concepts.  Students had to figure out how many “wholes” they would need on their number line and then draw all of their tic marks.

 Then they had to mark off where their toppings would fall.  So if they had 8/6 pepperoni, they had to count out 8 sixths on their number line.  They were able to see that this was greater than one whole.  They marked off pepperoni on their number line.  Then they worked to plot all of their other toppings.  This worked great!  I was so pleased with how well my students worked through the process.  

     Once the groups were done, they were sharing their number line and using “math talk” unprompted to describe how much of each type they had, which ones were greater than one whole, which topping had the most, and which had the least.  The numberlines and the pizzas made a very cute math bulletin board!  I plan on doing this activity from now on.  It was a hit!

~Heather