If you’re struggling with finding a good activity to reinforce fraction equivalency, or feel your students just need some extra practice with visualizing fractions, order up a slice of Tony Fraction’s Pizza Game. I have to thank the fine educators over at Harry F. Byrd Middle School in Henrico County Virginia for sharing this website on their “Links Blog.” While I usually post a site like this on the forum, or just to the Fresh Links, I couldn’t resist sharing it with a wider audience.
I’m not the math teacher for 6th grade (although I have taught math in the past), but I’m usually looking for ways to reinforce math skills in the subject areas I teach (especially Science). Since a number of my students were having problems adding simple fractions (think 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, etc.) I was glad to discover this site as it focuses on using simple fractions to correctly fill pizza orders. Not that I’m excited about making pizzas in science, but it’s important to be able to add fractions like this (as well as finding common denominators) for use in measuring.
Since we’ve been having trouble adding measurements for science investigations, I decided to give my kids some time with the game. They were immediately addicted to the premise; fill as many orders as correctly as possible before time runs out. You earn money for each correctly filled order, but if you make a mistake then you lose money from a dissatisfied customer. Many of the pizza combinations are very easy like 1/4 pepperoni and 3/4 cheese on a pizza with 4 slices. However, there’s also plenty of more challenging orders like 2/6 mushroom, 1/6 bacon, 1/6 pepperoni, and 1/4 cheese on a pizza with 12 slices. Granted, the most difficult order would be easy by experienced fraction users, but this site would greatly benefit those students that are just being introduced to fraction equivalency or need a brush up.
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Wow. The site with the Tony Fraction Pizza Game (Mr. Nussbaum.com) is a treasure trove of interactive games and learning activities. With all that I read and all the conferences I attend I have never seen ths site before. It is truly a winner.
Thanks for sharing. I can’t wait to show this site to my students!
I had thought about highlighting the entire site since it does have a lot of really nice activities and games, but I thought just pinpointing one game might draw in more people. There are so many sites out there that are either a collection of activities, or links to activities, it’s hard to tell the difference between their descriptions. That and I had a hoot trying to fill pizza orders with my class, so I wanted to share that good feeling. Glad you’re excited about the site.
I actually had a teacher thank me in the hall for finding this site. It was twice as nice because it meant she was checking out the links site. Positive reactions go a long way!