Fractions--Again

Hershey Bar 

I have been teaching a GED class at a crisis pregnancy center.  One of our students was an honor student in high school who dropped out of school her senior year to care for her grandmother who is blind along with many more health issues.  This girl took the practice test and blew the socks off of every test except Math, which she failed.  While analyzing her test, I discovered that she had missed every fraction questions on the test.  When I questioned her, she said, "I don't get fractions--at all."  I told her to come prepared to work on fractions at the next class.  What am I going to do?

I am going to buy a large Hershey bar which she will break apart and discover how many pieces are in the whole.  Then we can add and subtract the segments to demonstrate that we are still working with a part of the whole. 

Whole oranges are also a great tool to use.  Try not to use anything that you have to cut because it is too difficult to cut each piece the same size.

I hope this helps.  Thanks for stopping by.

Teaching Prepositions

Prepositions are difficult to teach because you can't show them.  A student can't see them. The definition of the word Preposition doesn't fit all the prepositions.  Prepositions are the smallest words in the English language, yet they are very important.  Here are a few hints to help you teach them.

 

The word itself is a help.  Let's look at it.  Preposition.  Pre-position.  A preposition tells the position of one object to another. 

Teaching prepositions through activity:  Place a box, chair or stool in the middle of the room.  Then instruct the student to go: under, over, through, around, in, and out of the box, chair, or stool.

Visual model: Draw a simple house on the board.  Then write the positions in appropriate places of the house.  (Use arrows for words like in and through.)