I am convinced that my students have another idea of what they want the 5th grade curriculum to be:) No matter how much I plan, they will always send me in a different direction, which I love. It started yesterday with these two grids and responses…

That led to these journal entries and our conversation today….

I led with thinking about the fraction (or decimal) in a decimal. We did some more grids and the students were seeing the thousandths like taking a fraction and breaking it into smaller pieces to still have equivalents, like 1.5/4 = 3/8. Then a group of students who were done with the grid work, asked me if there can be a fraction or decimal in a denominator…..here we go…

I asked them what they thought it meant and this is their starting point. They jotted some examples and started playing around with 1 / 2/8. He drew it with 2/8 size pieces, came out with 4 but said that looks the same as 1/4.

I asked him if it could be, and his intuition was saying no, but he couldn’t figure out why. I asked him what happens when a denominator number gets smaller, he says piece gets bigger. So he started with 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 1/1, said 2/8 / 2/8 = 1. From there he realized that 1/ 2/8 was improper. Here is where he ended because class ended.

I had another working with 100 grids trying to figure percentage-wise is 1/4.5 fell between 1/4 and 1/5 and here are a few others…

So much to chat about, but after a long day, my brain needs a break:)

I just love how a thousandths grid lesson can lead to this, I want my students to publish a “Kids Curriculum” as a supplement to mine, because they obviously have so many amazing curiosities! (Or maybe, Christopher, we can name it Kids Kurriculum)

-Kristin