It's All About Pizza

Even though I have started my fractions groups by using giant cookies and a recipe for mushroom sandwiches, the example I use the most when talking about fractions is pizza. I spent some time this morning cutting out large red paper circles. Some of them I cut into halves and some I cut into fourths. I will use them as visuals when I talk about pizza slices and improper fractions and mixed numbers.

Improper fractions simply tell how many pieces there are and what kind of pieces they are. They are usually not the best way to express a number, but sometimes they are necessary. So if I have nine fourths, I have nine pieces that have been cut into fourths (which means four for every whole pizza). Using my visuals, students can see that every group of four makes a whole pizza. They find that two whole pizzas can be made with one piece left over. After some practice with this concept, I help them to verbalize the analog for how to change an improper fraction to a mixed number.

Then we move on to starting with a mixed number and changing it to an improper fraction. The pizza slices come in handy once again as students can beak down the wholes to see how many parts there are. Together, we come up with the steps for doing this process without the pizza slices.

The worst part of all of this is that the kids complain that these exercises make them hungry. It has an effect on me too—“Hello, Pizza Hut? I’d like to order a large pizza to be delivered to the school!”