From Fraction to Decimal Equivalent Forms

I loved this activity! It was one of those moments when everything simply falls into place. Hooray! One of the concepts I needed to make sure my students understood was the number of ways you can write a fraction, including decimal form. CHECK! I wanted my students engaged. CHECK! I wanted conversation happening among my students. CHECK!

This activity would be great for a math warm-up, a quick review, center activity, or whole class activity like we used it! If you are interested in this activity purchase it HERE.

All of the materials were copied in different colored paper.  I personally chose to leave the first page of this activity white. This was done to help students find the first card.  After copying all of the pages I cut apart all of the strips and all off the fraction pictures. 

I placed the white strips around the room. My students sit in table groups so I gave each table two white strips. I loved leaving these strips there for a chunk of time before math. It drove a few of my students a bit mad because they really wanted to know what they were for. (Love the touch of torture!)  

(Sorry it's on its side - it wouldn't rotate.)

Before we started I took a moment to model what we were looking for in this activity. I told my students we were going to look for equivalent fractions and decimals. I wrote "1 out of 10" on the board. I then wrote 1/10 and asked if they were equivalent. If they were I left it up. If not I crossed it out. Then I asked if 0.1 works. Yes I left it. I wrote 0.01? Nope and crossed it off. Once my students had a solid understanding of the task I scattered the rest of the colorful strips randomly among my students.

I told my class that each group had a number of colored strips. They had to start with the white fraction strips at their own table, then they had to go through all of their remaining strips to check if they had any equivalent to the white strip(s) on their table. 

When they found an equivalent value they placed it below the first white strip. Once they finished going through all the strips they could move to the next white strip. My students continued to move around the room looking for anything equivalent. However, if a strip did not have an equivalent strip it goes on the “trash can”.

At the end I went through the trash can. If it was correct I gave them a happy point. If it was incorrect we fixed it and then they earned a “meh” point. Happy points they won, "meh" points I won.

Today was a success. Whether you are teaching this concept for the first time or simply reviewing this activity will keep students engaged. Check it out in my TPT store HERE.