Whole class teaching with Jonathan

Hello, I'm Jonathan. I've used Fractions Lab in four lessons this week with my Year 2 class. I like that Fractions Lab has different ways of representing fractions so we've done a lot of talking about fractions and what is the same and different about the fraction representations. From that, the students have been using terms such as numerator and denominator. We made fractions equivalent to one half they noticed the patterns of the numbers in the symbols and they noticed the connection with the multiples of two.

Intervention group with Komal

I'm Komal and I've used Fractions Lab with groups of students in my Year 6 class. During our Fractions unit I've used Fractions Lab with targeted students to bridge the gaps in their learning. I talk to them about the fractions and we work through tasks together while the other students are working independently on other tasks. I like using Fractions Lab this way because the students can see the original fraction while they change it in ways they couldn't do with our other classroom resources. The students say it helps them to visualise the fractions and they are now talking about those visualisations as they solve other problems

Collaborative groups with Hone

Kia ora! I'm Hone . The students in my Year 5 class often work in groups collaboratively. They're using Fractions Lab at the moment to improve their understanding of equivalent fractions as well as adding and subtracting fractions. They worked in groups of 2 - 4 going through the sample tasks and the associated pdf files. Now they're designing their own tasks for their peers to follow. They're really excited by the affordances of Fractions Lab and they say it beats the paper-based work we did last term on fractions.

Individual work in the ICT suite with Karen

Hi, I'm Karen and I work with Year 4. We have just two slots in the ICT suite each week but we used Fractions Lab four times because the students really liked it. I started with some familiarisation tasks that I modelled using the main screen with them mirroring what I did on their computers. Once they gained confidence in using Fractions Lab they worked through some of the sample tasks and some that I had designed for them myself. I made links to Fractions Lab during our other classroom-based maths lessons and individuals or pairs could carry on a little at our class computer too. By the end of the two weeks the students had a much higher level of confidence in their fractions learning and I'll definitely be using it again next term.

Homework with Michael

Gidday, I'm Michael. I'd already taught my fractions unit for this term when I heard about Fractions Lab, so I set some of the sample tasks as revision homework, giving them a copy of the PDFs. Many of the parents worked alongside their children on the website and some even told me they'd read the Getting Started Guides. As well as working through the tasks I set, some students did a lot more! It was great to see the students and their parents so engaged online - one parent told me they finally understood equivalent fractions themselves for the first time and another said they hadn't made the connection between fractions at school and real life before. My next step is to think about how I integrate Fractions Lab into both my teaching and the students' homework next term.