Year 4 Fraction Pizza

Making the pizza. Image taken by author

I'm currently on practicum in a Year 4 classroom in Perth and I have been made responsible for teaching the mathematics class. This particular school teaches maths in ability streams and I am responsible for the lowest ability stream, which consists of eight children. The focus topic for my practicum is fractions and decimals.

When I first started observing and engaging with these children, I quickly realised that most of them lacked enjoyment and motivation to learn mathematics. Most of the children did not value mathematics because they perceive it as boring and unrelated to their lives. Therefore, my approach to teaching them the subject is underpinned by my aim to help the children enjoy maths and value its real-life applications. What a better way to do this than to make a fraction pizza with them!

There are ten people involved in the class (myself, my mentor teacher and the eight children) so the pizza was firstly cut into tenths. The children were each responsible for creating one particular ingredient for the class pizza and needed to take orders from their peers. They had to then sprinkle their ingredient only on the pieces of pizza which needed it, and then work together to assemble the whole pizza. Once the pizza was made, we were able to 'extract' the maths from the delicious and attractive pizza that we made, and the children all showed a high level of engagement and understanding in regards to the relevant fraction and parts-of-a-whole mathematics. A summative test based on this unit also indicated a very successful maths sequence (and the successful integration of arts and crafts with maths!).