Miquon red book fractions help

[Snow]

We are doing Miquon red book and I don't think I'm explaining reducing fractions very well. DS gets that 1/8 means one out of 8. But when asked to cross off 1/4 of the objects when there are 8 objects, he gets stuck. I've tried explaining that when there are more than 4 objects, he needs to get those objects into 4 groups instead (no longer focusing on the individual objects but groups) and then cross off 1out of the 4 groups. I don't think that way of explaining it is getting through. To be fair, we've only been working on it for a few days. I just feel like I'm not explaining it very well.

 

Any suggestions on how I can better explain the process? We haven't been using rods much lately since he's gotten so good at basic facts...perhaps I should go back to rods for a visual??

[kiana]

Maybe instead think about putting them into groups of four and then crossing off one from each group? Maybe that would make more sense to him?

[Farrar]

There are some really good rod activities for fractions on Education Unboxed.  She has a game about rescuing a princess from a dragon or something that we especially liked.

[Farrar]

By the way, this was the topic that was by far the most challenging for both my kids - the Miquon one and the MM one.  And it's the topic that I ended up doing the most homemade lab sheets for.  It was tricky thinking.  I think it's intuitive for some people and not others.  But it's also the topic that I saw the most growth in my Miquon boy over the years that he used the program.  And he still has a much, much more intuitive understanding of fractions than his brother and I really credit Miquon with that.  So basically, stick with it if you can.  This is one of the topics that I think makes Miquon something special.

[CardinalAlt]

The circling groups approach made the most sense to my daughter, and it's literally what's meant - "1 out of every 4.". But yeah, it was tricky at first. We also practiced with manipulatives like coins - she had trouble using the rods to represent fractions for this... Maybe I didn't try long enough though.

[Eagle]

We just did those snowmen fraction pages. When it was 1/4 I got ds to cover 4 of the 8 snowmen so he could only see 4 at a time. Then 1/4 made sense to him and he could add something to one snowman. Then we covered the other 4 and he added something to one of those snowmen. When they were all uncovered he could see that 1/4 = 2/8. Same with 1/2, we covered everything except 2 snowmen and he added an item to 1 of the 2. By the last page of the snowmen book he understood how to cover things on his own in order to figure the fractions out himself.

[Snow]

Thanks everyone. Yes, it's the snowmen pages and i did try covering the rows. I also explained we need to make the snowmen into four groups and so drew lines between pairs of two. Glad to know that I'm not too far off the mark with how I've presented it. I'm thinking now it's a matter of more practice. I just went back through the education unboxed videos. Man, she's so good. I need to remember to go there more often. I think I will go back and review with rods and then just keep practicing with different scenarios.

 

Thanks much!

[CardinalAlt]

Your way works, but I think it's a little different than the way we're describing, kind of the inverse. We would make groups of 4, and find there are two of them - versus 4 groups of two. (This would be so much easier to draw.) Then after marking 1 out of each 4, the child discovers that new group of 2 marked snowen out of 8 total. Not that one way is right and the other wrong, but just in case the different approach might be helpful! The beauty of math is that there are so many ways to approach it, the mystery is which way will connect with your child :)

[Snow]

Thanks Cardinal. Yes, i see what you mean. It's a slight difference but that might be what he needs. I'll try it. Thanks!