Let's face it - there are two realities that come into play when thinking about planning and preparing stations for Mathematics. The first; they are a great idea, cater to many learning styles, and can be FUN! The second? They can be daunting to plan, you may not know what to include in it, and they take a WHILE to prepare!
The solution? Being a community of incredible educators who love to share ideas and resources with one another to make life EASIER!
Throughout this blog post I will take you step by step into the Fraction Rotation Stations I did with my students and give you all the links and resources that you need to be successful at it. I hope to provide some clarity for you and take away the intimidation of planning stations. Let's get started!
The Pre-Planning of Stations
Before we begin the stations themselves, I explain every single one by physically walking around to each station, explaining what the students do in each one, and what tools are needed for that particular station (copies of slides, pencil, Math notebook, etc.,). Once I'm done explaining and I feel like each student understands what they're doing I project my Math Rotation Station Slides on the board.
The slides are incredibly straight forward and easy to use. I created them simply so that you don't have to! There is a 15 minute timer at the top of each slide which is also easily interchangeable if you want a different time allotment. I just find timers on Youtube that suit my needs whether its 5, 10, 15, or 20 minutes! I create the groups based on my students' needs and strengths as learners and as collaborators. This is a personal preference and something you can decide yourself; you know your class best :)
IMPORTANT NOTE: Before these stations, my students completed lessons and homework tasks with me on all the fraction concepts covered in these stations. The purpose here was to continue growing their understanding, reinforcing what they learned, and to practice.
STATION ONE: TARSIA PUZZLES The Tarsia puzzle activity is one that I found on Teachers Pay Teachers a few years ago and is something I use every year whether its in a station like this one, a house challenge, or just a math activity. This activity was created by the TPT creator, Saving the Teachers. Tarsia puzzles are entertaining math puzzles and these provide practice for finding equivalent fractions. What I like about this pack is that it contains three differentiated puzzles, which range from finding simple equivalent fractions to converting larger fractions as well as mixed numbers. I provide my students with the first two as options for a simpler one and a more challenging one and I have enough for students to try it individually if they want, or with a partner! Most of my students opted to work with a partner with a select few really wanting to challenge themselves. While walking around during stations, I spent a lot of time at this station just to help students get started. I usually tell them which triangle is the top point to give them a starting place, or sometimes I do it with them and provide them with prompts to find the equivalent fractions. All dependent on your students and knowing them :)
The goal is to organize the smaller triangles into one large triangle by matching the sides with its equivalent. You can find the puzzle and all the instructions by following the link here.
STATION TWO: SCRUMPTIOUSLY SIMPLIFIED FRACTIONS
This activity is a popular one with my kids because I incorporate some sweet treats with it and let's be honest; kids love candy! I found this resource on Teachers Pay Teachers as well and it was created by Teaching with a Mountain View. One of the best parts of this resource? IT'S COMPLETELY FREE! This activity teaches kids to put fractions into simplest form by using any other coloured candy. I like to use Jolly Ranchers because there are 5 flavours/colours and they are individually wrapped which is key since the kids will be separating them! Other candies I've seen used are M&M's, Skittles, or Smarties! I just buy 2 packs of Jolly Ranchers at the Dollarama for $2.50 each and then give them to the kids after all stations are done as a reward.
Essentially, the students go through the candies and create fractions based on the flavours. The resource does a great job at breaking down the steps for the students so they see how they made the fraction. From there, the students have to practice simplifying, by simplifying the fractions they created. I could the total number of candies beforehand to ensure that the total number of candies is NOT a prime number and that the students can simplify it.
I changed it around a bit on my own to fit how we learned and practiced in class but this resource is fantastic. It is available in DIGITAL and PRINTABLE versions and you can find it by clicking on the link here.
STATION THREE: PLAYDOH PIECES
This activity is a seriously hands-on task! In my experience, this station takes the longest and you will definitely have to modify it in a way that works best for your class. Let me explain... when we did this stations this time around, I had each student be responsible for one slide on the Google Slides deck. There are 5 tasks in total so if there were 5 students each one had one, if there were less they chose one to do and if they finished before the timer, they could work on it.
I also asked ONE student to make a copy of the slides and invite their group mates to be able to edit the slide so that all their work was in one place. This digital activity requires students to take a picture and put it in the slides. My class is lucky in the sense that our Chromebooks are 1:1 and students were able to take pictures with their Chromebooks to post, or with their personal devices. Any students who struggled had help from one of their group mates.
For this activity you will need Playdoh or any equivalent such as Crayola's Model Magic. I found containers of Playdoh at the Dollar Store for cheap a few years ago and they still good as new. I place a Plexiglass board down on the tables to help with clean up - totally optional but I recommend it. I also give my students a plastic knife to help with the cutting and moulding of the Playdoh - again, totally optional but I realized it was a great idea and addition to the task.
Students receive an improper fraction and have to create a visual representation of it using the Playdoh, take a picture of it, and then use their representation to convert the improper fraction to a mixed number. I found that when we first started learning it my students still didn't understand what exactly the denominator represents - the idea that it tells us how many pieces the whole is split into. This activity really reinforced that. The first slide is an example to help guide them.
The Google Slides to compliment this station was created by me and is a DIGITAL resource that is accessible by following the link here.
STATION FOUR: PRACTICE HOMEWORK
This station is one that requires the least amount of prep! All I do here is I choose a concept between equivalent fractions, simplifying fractions, or converting between improper and mixed and I post a worksheet for students to work on during the station.
There is an option to post a worksheet for each concept to provide students with the choice of which one they need the most work on! This is also a great idea and really differentiates the learning. The nice part with this is that students can also work on this if they finish any other stations early.
ADDITIONAL OPTIONS
There are so many activities that you can do to replace the ones listed here that you can find on various websites. I really like that there are so many online Math games as well and what I do alongside each station is post four online Math-based games that reinforce our learning. Students can play them if they finish stations early, they can try a new one after each station, or the online games can serve as a fifth and final station where every student can play the games for another 15 minute period!
Here are the four games I posted for my students:
Equivalent Fraction Matching Cards (click here)
Equivalent Fractions Flash Questions (click here)
Levelled Equivalent Fraction Self-Graded Sheets (click here)
Equivalent Fractions Splat (click here)
And that's it!
I hope this provides you with some clarity, ideas, help, resources and everything in between to help get you started with your own Rotation Stations for Fractions! If you have any questions feel free to send me a DM on my Instagram (@thecheerteacher).