Many students have anxiety around fractions. We use so many whole numbers in math that the idea of splitting them up can be scary. But the third graders have rocked our first look at fractions!
We started with a project called Fair Share. We started off with sharing one brownie with a group of friends. We used paper 
brownies to actually cut up the brownie in many different ways. We realized that if we share with 2 people, we split our brownies in half. We also realized that we can cut something in half different ways, but still have equal parts. We kept going by sharing that one brownie with 3, 4, 6, and 8 friends.
Then we kicked it up a notch by sharing multiple brownies. We first tried to share seven brownies with four friends. Many groups found multiple ways to share them, some with proper fractions and some with impro
per. This investigation opened up many discussions about math, and everyone shares their own ways of dividing and making fractions.
Last, to celebrate, we had to make REAL brownies, of course! We enjoyed making them, measuring, pouring, mixing, and finally splitting them up to share with our real friends, too.
