Exploring Fractions with Pizza

This WebQuest is to help students in grades K-2 learn about and understand fractions by using books, videos, songs, and games. They will work together and as individuals. The action and interaction will keep them involved, and they will enjoy the usage of pizza to learn. Who doesn't love pizza? By using magnetic pizza with pieces a student can hold, you can adapt the lesson for different learning styles and disabilities. This WebQuest can take about 1 1/2 hours between watching videos, reading books, and doing the activities. It can also be added to a week long unit which can include music, reading, art, and writing, and end with students showing understanding with worksheets.

Standards

Common Core State Standards - Mathematics � Grade 2 � Geometry 2.G.3. Partition circles and rectangles into two, three, or four equal shares, describe the shares using the words halves, thirds, half of, a third of, etc., and describe the whole as two halves, three thirds, four fourths. Recognize that equal shares of identical wholes need not have the same shape.

Credits

We used Google to help us find our information. Worksheets were copied from a free site called education.com which is a great resource for new teachers. YouTube was also a great resource for songs and videos to add life to the lesson and to help make the learning more fun for children. Picture on process page is from enasco.com. All other pictures are from thinkstockphotos.com. Corestandards.org gave us the standards needed to make sure work is on grade level. Amazon.com showed us games to help teach same lesson to students with disabilities, and also has many books that can be bought on the subject.

Other

We have added a couple of other YouTube videos about pizza making in the United States and Italy. You can do so much more with this information, such as having the students make compare and contrast charts or write paragraphs about what they learned about both places. There is another video with a song the class can learn in music, which can give them great ideas about what to put on their own pizzas, plus it is partly in French too. You can continue the lesson in art by having students draw pizzas and show fractions of their different toppings. Another fun idea is to arrange a class trip to a pizza place so the children can put what they have learned to use in a fun and tasty way by making their own pizzas and seeing everything close up!