Unit 4, Lesson 16
Solving Problems Involving Fractions (Optional)
Grade 6
Preparation
Lesson Narrative
In this lesson, students apply their understanding of all four operations to represent and solve problems involving fractions. The lesson is optional as it offers further practice on skills from this unit and reinforces concepts of fractions from earlier grades.
In all activities, students are prompted to interpret situations or expressions, represent situations and questions mathematically, and estimate answers that would make sense in terms of the situations. Along the way, students practice reasoning abstractly and quantitatively (MP2).
The last activity requires students to think about how different constraints limit possible answers to a question, prompting students to make sense of a problem and persevere in solving it (MP1).
- Generate an equation to represent a situation involving fractions, and justify (orally) the operation chosen.
- Use operations with fractions to solve problems in a variety of situations, and explain (orally and in writing) the reasoning.
Let’s add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions.
Required Preparation
For the second activity ("Pairs of Problems"), plan an efficient way to assign at least 1 division problem and 1 problem involving another operation to each student (or group).
Before class, plan an efficient way to assign at least 1 division problem and 1 problem involving another operation to each student (or group).