Susan Guan

The Short Form Lesson Planner

Content Area: Math Adding Fractions By Joining Parts______________
Lesson Length: ___60___ minutes
Content Standards:
CCSS.Math. 4.NF.3a Understand a fraction a/b with a > 1 as a sum of fractions 1/b. Understand addition
and subtraction of fractions as joining and separating parts referring to the same whole.
Learning Objective/Goal:
Students will add fractions with common denominators by joining its parts.
The Lesson Plan
Introduction (2 minutes)
- Ask students what it means to decompose a fraction.
- Then ask students if I had the fraction 3/4, how would I be able to decompose that fraction into
parts. Ask student what parts make up .
- Talk about each fraction being made up by its parts = + +
- Show the following with fractions slices under the document camera and show how is made up
of three pieces

Body (50 minutes)

Modeling: (15 minutes) Will model the problems with fraction slices and number lines
Visual Model
Problem #1: 1/6 + 3/6
- Represent both fractions with fraction slices. Ask students what fraction each fraction model
represents. Then ask students what they think I will get if I wanted to add and combine these
fraction together.
- Call on students to answer and then guide students to saying 4/6 by showing students how the
fractions pieces can be joined together to make 4/6.
- Talk about how when adding both fractions together, the numerators are added but the
denominator stays the same as I join the two fraction models together to make one. As I am
joining them, the shades pieces that represent the numerators are added together while the
whole/total number of pieces that make up the whole, which is the denominator does not change.
-

Problem #2: 3/8 + 4/8

Represent both fractions with fraction slices. Ask students what fraction each fraction model
represents. Then ask students what they think I will get if I wanted to add and combine these
fraction together.
Call on student to answer and then guide students to saying 7/8 by showing students how
fractions pieces can be joined together to make 7/8.

Talk about how when adding both fractions together, the numerators are added but the
denominator stays the same.
Number Line
Problem #1: + 2/4
- First, talk about now trying to use number lines to adding fractions, which is another way we can
conceptually represent adding fractions. Represent the first fraction on a number line and ask
students what fraction this is. And then represent the second fraction and ask students what
fraction this is.
- Ask student what will happen if I want to add these fractions together. Model how to add
fractions on a number line to get .
-

Problem #2: 2/6 + 3/6

Show students the problem. Then model how to represent both fractions with number lines.
Model how to add both fractions on a number line.

Guided Practice: (15 minutes)

- Students will do two problems using their white boards and then we will come back as a class to
share our work. I will ask for volunteers to come up to class and share their work under the
document camera. I will focus on how students are explaining their answer using the visual
models to support their reasoning.
- During this time, I will monitor student work and student thinking and provide guidance and
support for students who may need it.
o Possible questions: What did you do here? How did you solve this? Why did you get this
answer? Can you prove to me why this is true? How do you know this?
1) 4/6 + 1/6 (using fraction slices)
2) 4/8 + 3/8 (using fraction slices)
3) 2/5 + 2/5 (using number lines)
4) 3/9 + 5/9 (using number lines)
Independent Practice: (20 minutes)
- Students will be work on a rich task worksheet independently.
Rich Task Worksheet:
Prompt: At a birthday party, there is a pizza with 12 slices. Three friends ate 8/12 of the pizza altogether.
What are three possible combinations of pizza slices that the three friends could have eaten at the party?
Use visual models such as fraction models and number lines to show your answer and explain your
reasoning.
Closure (3 minutes): Describe how you will prompt the students to summarize the lesson and restate the
learning objective.
-

After, come back as a class to share the possible combinations that students came up with.
After sharing, we will talk about what we learned today which is adding fractions.
o Possible questions:
What are the two strategies we can use to add fractions?
When adding fractions, what happens to the numerators? Why? What about the
denominators? Why?