Most third graders should be able to order numbers really well--putting a handful of numbers in least to greatest or greatest to least, but they may need a little bit of practice with fractions. Actually, even some older grade students struggle with fractions.
This is hands-on... Have the kids create fraction strips to learn about how to order fractions. Yes, do not prepare anything else other than strips of paper (but they all have to be the same length). Have the kids turn the strips into halves, thirds, fourths, sixths, eights, nineths ( and maybe twelvths and eighteenths if you want) by only folding. I suggest you take each fraction one at a time.
Into halves.
That one should be easy, but still you should ask a student how they did it. How did they know it was half?
Then thirds.
Was this tricky? What makes it difficult?
Fourths.
My 2nd grader did it the fastest way with folding in half and then in half again although my fifth grader brought both ends to the center, then folded each side, and folded the center last. How do your students do it?
Sixths.
Is it hard? How did you do it? (They will find out--or they might already know that they fold the thirds in half)
Eights.
Was this similar to any other way? Maybe like the fourths?
Just to see if I could do it--I made a strip into fifths. If some students want to eyeball it, they can. I folded the paper so the two sides looked approximately the same as the interior section, then finished the other two folds.
Here are the fractions strips!
Do you do this type of activity in your class?
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