Lesson Overview Students demonstrate various ways to represent and verify a whole or set separated into two, three, or four equal parts. Mathematics Overview Students use appropriate tools and language to find and describe a part of a whole or a part of a set. Have a large bag or box filled with interlocking cubes. Discuss with the students that you would like for them to use half of the cubes in the activity, and you will share the other half with the class next door so they can do the activity, too. These ideas can be recorded on a chart or on the board for future reference, if desirable.
Students can tell what they think are the advantages and disadvantages of a particular technique.
Have students dictate a class language-experience story about how this information might be helpful to them in the future. Students can use a variety of materials with which to represent the equal parts, e.g. candy bars, bags of candies, fruit. Students can bring something from home that shows two equal parts, three equal parts, or four equal parts. Students can make a symmetrical picture and relate it to making two equal parts. Students can make a picture that shows three equal parts or four equal parts.