Using a new fraction strip, the hundredths strip, helps you find decimal estimates for all the marks on your other fraction strips. Distributing food items among care packages leads you to discover that a fraction is a way to indicate a division. A database of information about 100 cats introduces you to percents as a way to represent fractions. Rewriting sale signs for a pet store lets you apply what you have learned about moving between fractions, decimals, and percents. The part-whole interpretation of fractions is developed.
Students make fraction strips to study the progress toward a fund-raising goal.
The most important concept in understanding and using rational numbers is equivalence of fractions. This concept underlies operations with fractions, changing representations of fractions, and reasoning proportionally. The context of comparing fraction strips is used to motivate an investigation of equivalence and the creation of a number line that contains all the information of the individual fraction strips. The idea of using benchmarks to estimate the size of fractions and to make comparisons is introduced. The square and the rectangle are particularly useful areas because they are easy to subdivide and to shade.