First graders started diving into fraction concepts through explorations of equal shares. They started by splitting shapes up into equal parts. They asked themselves questions like: can a square be divided equally into two shares? How about a circle? The focus of first grade is exploring and naming halves and fourths. Each child completed a challenge problem, wondering who might get a bigger share of a square if four people shared, or if two people shared. The goal of this type of exploration is to expose students to the idea that more shares means smaller shares; the more times a shape (or share) is divided, the smaller it gets.
