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As a child, looking at Solar System picture books was a fascination, but I never realized how grossly inaccurate those pictures were in terms of relative size and distance of planets.

What is a fraction? A fraction is a way of representing division of a whole into parts.  It has the form of numerator over denominator N/D, where the numerator is the number of parts chosen and the denominator is the total number of equal parts.

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The children did a great job last week of determining area and perimeter in terms of square units and linear units, respectively.  They did this using our City A through City D plus their own creations.

We explored how the children identified a rectangle on a geoboard.  The children learned the most general attibute is a "polygon," "quadrilateral,"  a "parallelogram," then a "rectangle." 'How do you name this rectangle?' was the next question. We learned that you name rectangles by their dimensions.  Two dimensions, "length and width," "base and height." For example, a 3x5 rectangle.

We explored the use of geoboards with pegs and rubberbands to create unusual polygons.  

After they completed their creations, they had to count the number of sides to name the polygon.

Then they were given large graph paper for them to try to replicate their geoboard polygon.  They did extraordinarily well once they were able to plan where they would start their drawing.

I gave them extra sheets of this large graph paper (see attached pdf) with instructions for during the week to 1. Create, 2. Color, and 3. Cutout.