Bryony's Triangle

The practical aspect of this task will appeal to many children.  It offers an opportunity for learners to share their understanding of fractions with each other as they work to solve the problem.

You could begin by watching the video straight through all together and then talking about the task as a whole group so that everyone feels confident to have a go.  It might be worth playing it again all through before handing out squares of paper.  You could then play the video a third time in short sections as learners fold their own paper.  

 

Alternatively, you could demonstrate the folding yourself if you are not able to use the video in the classroom.

 

Once all learners have made the flower, give them a chance to talk in pairs about the fraction part of the challenge.  It might be that at this point, more squares of paper are needed which could be folded again and annotated.  After some time, you could ask pairs to join together to form groups of four so that each pair has chance to explain their thinking so far.

 

You might give each group or pair a piece of large paper for them to record their ideas, which could then be presented to the rest of the class.    

How might you use the folds of your flower to help?

What fractions of the piece of paper can you see using the folds? 

How could you split the paper in half using the fold lines?  A quarter ...?  

Some children might like to have a go at Fraction Fascination.

You could encourage children to open out the flower and draw lines on the square over the fold lines to mark halves, quarters etc. You may want to have scissors and coloured pencils/pens available too.  It might be appropriate to offer a different paper-folding task which is more accessible.  You could challenge children to find a fraction contained within that, which perhaps requires fewer 'steps'.