Session 14 Piara Waters - Andrea and Jasmine Year 7 Maths

This 10-minute warm-up, featuring Exurgency, music by Canadian-American cellist Zoë Keating, is designed to activate students’ imagination while creating a sense of calm and focus. 

Students closed their eyes and listened to 5 minutes of the music and while it’s playing, they have to think about what comes into their minds. They identified things like, a walk beside a river, a map in africa and a river flowing through my mind.

Core Activity – FRACTION MANIPULATABLES

Activity 1: Paper Folding Method [fraction multiplication]

Materials: A4 paper, colored pencils/markers

Problem: Find 1/2 × 1/3

1. Start with a rectangle - this represents "1 whole"

2. Show the first fraction (1/2):

   • Fold your paper in half vertically

   • Shade the right half with one color (e.g., blue)

   • This shows 1/2 of the whole paper

3. Show the second fraction (1/3):

   • Now fold the same paper in thirds horizontally

   • Using a different color (e.g., red), shade the top third with horizontal stripes

4. Find the overlap:

   • Look for where blue and red overlap (this creates purple if using those colors)

   • Count the small rectangles: How many overlap? How many total small rectangles?

   • The overlapping section shows the answer 

5. Write your answer: 1/2 × 1/3 = 1/6

Try these:

• 1/2 × 1/4 (fold in half, then in quarters) =

• 2/3 × 1/2 (fold in thirds, shade 2 sections, then fold in half) =

• 2/3 x 1/4 =

• 3/5 × 2/7 =

• 1/6 × 4/9 =

• 5/8 × 3/10 =

• 2/9 × 6/7 =

• 4/5 × 1/8 =

• 7/10 × 2/3 =

• 3/4 × 5/6 =

• 1/7 × 8/9 =

• 6/8 × 4/10 =

Reflection Questions:

1. What does "multiplication of fractions" mean in your own words?

2. How is finding "1/3 of 1/2" the same as "1/3 × 1/2"?

3. When you overlap the shaded areas, why does the result get smaller than either original fraction?

Activity 2: Strip Diagrams [fraction division]

You will need: Paper strips of equal length (about 20cm)

Problem: Solve 3/4 ÷ 1/8 using strip diagrams

Instructions:

1. Take one paper strip and fold it into 8 equal sections (3 folds)

2. Unfold and mark the fold lines clearly

3. Shade in 6 sections (this represents 3/4 of the strip)

4. Count how many 1/8 sections fit into your shaded 3/4 portion

5. Record: 3/4 ÷ 1/8 = ____

Try these:

Added sand from today’s creative habits:

• Imaginative - reuse of things, imagining in response to the music.

• Inquisitive - ask ourselves about how many times folding was needed and what that meant for division and multiplication of fractions

• Persistent - to fold the paper and use a different maths technique (also this identified discipline)