A new project I would like to try is fractions with the book
IF YOU WERE AN EEL, WHAT WOULD YOU FEEL? by Mina and Howard Simon. After reading and talking about the book I would explain to the students they are going to write a story using the pattern of this book about fractions. A sample title would be If You Were One-Half, How Would You Feel?
If you were one-half, how would you feel?
Or one-fourth
or one-third
or one eighth
how would you feel?
(You could change these to two-thirds, three-fourths depending on the level of your students.)
Say I were one-half -
As one-half
I would feel
like half of a whole.
I would be like
half of a pizza
or half of a glass of milk
or half of a twin
or half of a dollar (50 cents!)
or the number two when thinking of four
or half of an inch.
Say I were one-third -
As one third
I would feel
like an apple with two cherries.
I would be like
a dime in 30 cents
or
I would let students illustrate their content. To make the book a bit thicker, I wouldn't list all of the or statements on one page as the Simon's did in their book, I would put them on their own page. Illustrations can be hand drawn after printing the book or use clip art.
My favorite program is Publisher for something like this. (Don't forget Publisher has a booklet feature you could use to save on paper and ink.) Either print the file or save the file (don't use booklet feature and if you used clip art) as a pdf file and use studentpublishing.com to publish the books.
Make sure you credit the the authors (Mina and Howard Simon) for using their book. It would be nice if you would include this website on your finished project, too.
I think you could also use this book as a springboard to a book on shapes and the attributes of shapes.
Just for fun:
website for thirds...http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/fractionflags/ffthirds.html
