In the previous lesson, students named non-unit fractions and made sense of the notation used to write them. In this lesson, students play a game in which they build non-unit fractions from unit fractions (for example, they try to collect enough cards showing to make ). They record these fractions on a fraction-strip diagram. Then, students partition and shade diagrams to represent situations involving fractional lengths and consider the location of the endpoint of a fractional length. This will be helpful in subsequent lessons, when students represent fractions on a number line.

How did having visual representations help students think about building fractions from unit fractions in today’s lesson?