If you need ideas and resources for teaching fractions remotely, you’ve come to the right place! I’ve been working in online education for over five years. In this post, I’m sharing the best fraction activities for virtual learning including manipulatives, games, and websites!
If you’re looking for even more fraction activities and games, be sure to check out this video all about how to teach fractions virtually.
Digital Fraction Manipulatives
One of the most important things students need when learning about fractions is manipulatives. Manipulatives help students visualize and better comprehend parts of a whole.
If you’re teaching remotely, you may not have access to the manipulatives you use in the classroom. But, don’t panic! There are still plenty of fraction manipulatives that your students can access from home.
Some of the best digital fraction manipulatives can be found on Toy Theater or Whiteboard.Chat. The sites offer a variety of free fraction strips, bars, and circles that students can drag and drop onto a larger surface to compare, add, or subtract. You can also collaborate with students when using the digital manipulatives inside of Whiteboard.Chat, which will allow you to monitor students as they work remotely and provide assistance.
At-Home Fraction Manipulatives
Students can also create their own fraction manipulatives at home. The first time I tried to make fraction strips with students, I could not get my odd number denominator strips to turn out correctly. It can be challenging to fold the paper an odd number of times and still get the strips to be the same size. With some time and research, I created a method for ensuring all of my fraction strips (including the odd denominators) are the right size.
Learn more about the method I use to create fraction strips by watching the following video. This video can also be shared with students and their parents so that they can follow along as they make their own fraction strips at home.
Fraction Games for Online Learning
After your students have fraction manipulatives to work with, they can use those manipulatives to play fraction games. When thinking about fraction activities and games to play virtually with students, consider what you already do when teaching fractions in the classroom. A lot of activities and games can likely be replicated for virtual learning with some minor modifications.
Some of my favorite fraction activities to replicate for online learning are card games. While teaching over Zoom or another video conferencing software, create fractions by flipping over two cards. Students can compare, add, or subtract the fractions and write their responses on a piece of paper. Then, call on students to hold their answers up to the camera.
Another fun way to teach fractions is with a virtual bingo game. Most upper elementary students love playing bingo and virtual bingo games are easy to make. The following video shows how I create a class set of bingo cards and push them out to students in under five minutes.
Finally, I am a big fan of virtual task cards because students enjoy them and they are self-grading. Anytime I can cut down on time spent grading is a win! Do you agree? If you need self-grading fractions task cards, the following pre-made sets are available in my store. All of these math task card sets can be completed by students in Google Forms.
- Naming and Comparing Fractions Task Cards
- Comparing Fractions Task Cards
- Adding and Subtracting Fractions Task Cards
- Adding, Subtracting, and Multiplying Fractions Task Cards
- Comparing Fractions and Decimals Task Cards
These are just a few fraction activities and games to engage students remotely. Additional tips and activities can be found in my Ways to Teach Fractions Virtually video (which is embedded at the top of the page).
Fraction Online Games
Fraction online games are an easy way for students to learn fractions at home. The problem is finding websites without ads that do not require a paid subscription and still provide quality questioning for students. I spent a lot of time searching for fraction websites and did not find too many great solutions.
The two websites I did find that do not push out too many ads to students are Splash Learn and Education.com. Both sites are free to use, but they do require teachers and parents to create an account.
Conclusion
Overall, I have three strategies when teaching fractions virtually. First, make sure students have access to digital or self-created fraction manipulatives at home to help them visualize parts of a whole. Second, teach and review fractions by using fun activities and games such as Zoom games and self-grading task cards in Google Forms. Third, have students practice fractions daily using online games and websites. These fraction activities are sure to make your virtual fraction unit a success!
