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MATERIALS

Excursions student pages 271–275

Teacher-made Transparency: Excursions studentpage 275. (Cut out animals before lessonbegins.)

Transparency: Three-Ring Circus TR1

Home Connection pages 277—278

Scissors

Glue

LESSON OVERVIEW

Children explore the concept of fractions as repre-senting parts of a set. They begin by modeling andreviewing the language used to describe fractions.They focus initially on unit fractions and thenexplore interpreting !

34

! using different strategies.They interpret diagrams and name fractions. Tofinish, they follow directions to make a picture thatshows fractional parts of sets using models.

SETTING THE STAGE

Use models to introduce the concept ofparts of a set.

! Ask children whether they have ever seen ananimal act at a zoo, circus, or theme park.Encourage children to talk about their experiences.Ask questions to prompt them to talk in terms ofnumbers. For example, ask, How many seals were inthe pool? How many birds were in the show?

! Have children turn to Circus Animal Cards,page 275, and carefully cut out the cards. Tell chil-dren that the picture cards show all the animals inthe circus. Allow them time to sort the animalsinto groups, with each group having only one kindof animal.

! Prior to starting the lesson, cut out the animalsfrom Three-Ring Circus TR1 to use on the over-head. Display the transparency copies of the lions

on the overhead. Have children count the lions (8)and then tell them to lay all of their lion pictureson their desktops.

! Ask children how many lions are in the groupor set. (8) Tell children that the lion tamer has twocages backstage in which he keeps the lions beforethe show. He starts the show with lions coming infrom two sides. Say, The lion tamer has half of thelions in one cage and half in the other. Ask, Half of thelions is how many? (4) Encourage children to sorttheir lion pictures into two equal groups, one oneach side of their desks, to model the answer andsolve the problem. (4 lions in each cage)

BUILDING CONCEPTUAL

KNOWLEDGE

Explore fractions as representations ofparts of a set.

! Display all 8 lions on the overhead. Tell thechildren that !

34! of the lions are in the first act of

the show. Ask, Are !

34! of the lions less than all eight

lions? (less) Is !

34! more than half or less than half the

total number of lions? Could !

34! be 2 lions?

! Children may not know how to figure out howmany lions will be in the next circus act. Childrenhave had experiences with knowing what !

34! of a

whole looks like, in terms of a fraction representingparts of a whole. They may not know how to find!

34! of a set of eight.

! Explain to children that fractions can also showparts of a set. Remind them that the number ontop of a fraction is called the numerator. Thenumerator tells how many parts of a set aredescribed by the fraction. The number on the bot-tom of a fraction is called the denominator. Thedenominator tells the total number of parts in theset. You may want to mention that the linebetween the numerator and the denominator iscalled the vinculum and is a symbol for division.

Three-Ring CircusThree-Ring Circus

MA.A.1.1.3.2.2 and .3 and .4

LESSON FOCUS Using concrete materials to represent fraction-

al parts of a set; finding fractional parts of a set.

COMPANION ANCHORS LESSONS Parts of a Set; Fraction

of a Set

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

fraction set

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TOPIC 6 Three-Ring Circus

Three-Ring Circus

RING THE ACT

Look at the drawing. Answer the questions.

1. What fractional part of the tigers are circled?

2 . Timmy wants to circle half of the tigers. How many more tigers would Timmy need to circle?

3 . Draw a ring around !

41

! of the elephants.

4 . What fraction of the elephants are not ringed?

5 . What fractional part of the bears are roller-blading?

5

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3 more tigers

34

35

Page 271

ANIMALS IN THE RING

Use your animal cards to find the fractional part.

Glue the animals onto Map the Ring to show where they are in the circus.

1. !

34

! of the bears are entering through entrance 2.

2 . !

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! of the horses are performing in ring 1.

3 . !

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! of the dogs are entering through entrance 1.

4 . !

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! of the elephants are performing in ring 2.

5 . !

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! of the tigers are performing in ring 3.

6 . !

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! of the lions are standing in a row below the three rings.

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272 two hundred seventy-two TOPIC 6 Three-Ring Circus

Page 272

TOPIC 6 Three-Ring Circus

191

! Discuss with children what the fraction !

34! means

when applied to sets and parts of sets. The denomi-nator, 4, means that there are 4 equal parts (in thiscase, groups of lions). The numerator, 3, tells ushow many groups of lions will be performing inthe next act.

! Since the fraction !

34! calls for the lions to be in

sets of four, have children separate their lions intogroups of four. Ask children, How many groups wereyou able to make? (two groups with four lions ineach group)

! Now that children have the lions in groups offour, instruct children to put !

34! of the first group

aside for the next circus act. Write the fraction onthe board. Point to the denominator. Ask, Howmany lions are in the set? (4) Point to the numerator,and say, Three fourths of the lions in the set will go onstage. The numerator says how many lions go on stage.How many lions go on stage? (3 lions will go onstage.) Demonstrate, and have children copy you,moving three of the four lions to the center of the“stage.”

! Since !

34! of the entire group of lions are going to

be in the next circus act, we need to pull some of thesecond group of four lions to center stage as well.

! On the overhead projector, show children thatone lion from each group of four should nowremain in the “cages” and six lions (of eight) shouldbe center stage for the next circus act.

! A second way to illustrate that !

34! of eight

involves a different interpretation of the fraction isto say that the four in the denominator describesthe number of equal pieces the whole is brokeninto. Instruct children to separate their eight lionsinto four equal groups. Do the same using yourlions on the overhead projector. Children shouldnow have four groups with two lions in each group.Since !

34! of the lions are to perform in the next circus

act, we need to take three of the four groups (sixlions) and pull them aside for the next act. Again,two lions remain.

! Make sure to stress the point that when separat-ing a whole group into fractional pieces, eachgroup must be equal. It would have been incorrectto have a group of three lions and a group withonly one lion. Continue along this same line ofquestioning using different animal manipulativesand modeling on the overhead projector.

two hundred seventy-one 271TOPIC 6 Three-Ring Circus

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Three-Ring CircusRING THE ACT

Look at the drawing. Answer the questions.

1. What fractional part of the tigers are circled?

2. Timmy wants to circle half of the tigers. How many more tigers would Timmy need to circle?

3. Draw a ring around !41

! of the elephants.

4. What fraction of the elephants are not ringed?

5. What fractional part of the bears are roller-blading?

5

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