The future teachers introduced the respective
shapes as ‘the whole’ at the beginning
of the activity. After identifying the
whole, children were asked to draw lines
coming out from their whole representing
stems from the seed. Each table was supplied
with markers, glue, a white sheet of
paper and previously prepared shapes and
fraction pieces to make “fraction flowers.”
Children were excited with the activity, as
evidenced by Mindy’s notes: “The elemen-tary students wanted to be the one to glue on
the two halves that were equivalent to the
whole so that they could have another flower
on their team’s paper.” The activity involved
demonstrating different fractions of
the whole as flowers of fractions. With the
help of the future teachers, children found
halves, fourths, eighths, sixteenths of the
whole and completed their fractions flowers.
Children were able to see that 1/2, 2/4, 4/8,
8/16 were all equivalent within the same
whole as they were able to relate each one of
the stated fractions occupying the same
amount within the whole.