It’s a Match! Fractions, Decimals, and Percents

All that cutting was sure worth it! Fractions, Decimals and Percent Sort in action.

That was my tweet this morning as my 3rd period math class got to work on a fraction, decimal, and percent matching activity. Not long after, came some encouragement to write about the activity (thank you, @cheesemonkeysf and @wahedahbug)!

Knowing that there would be a school-wide special program in the hour preceding my class today, it was clear that I needed an engaging task to practice relating fractions, decimals, and percents. So yesterday afternoon I created a deck of fraction, decimal and percent cards, and brainstormed a variety of activities to use them for. Then, this morning, following a quick review of the fraction-decimal-percent relationship, card decks were distributed and my students worked in small groups to find the matches. Matches were recorded on a 3-column chart. To differentiate the decks, I removed several card trios and replaced them with cards that were more challenging. The blue deck, for example, has fractions of a percent, percents greater than 100% and applies equivalent fractions a bit differently.

Not only were students engaged, but there was some great conversation going on. There is nothing more satisfying than listening to students try to convince each other that their card group is correctly matched! Of course, the discussion also illuminated student misconceptions (i.e. 1/20 is 20%).

Over the next few days, my hope is to include some of these variations into the classroom.

• Remove the image cards from the basic deck and replace them with their corresponding fraction cards. Match the fraction, decimal, and percent.
• Use either the basic or challenge deck, with the decimal cards removed. Play Fraction and Percent Go Fish. Player One requests a card from Player Two by converting the fraction to a percent. For example, if the card in hand is , Player One would request 75% from Player Two. If the cards make a pair, Player One keeps the both cards. Player Two then takes a turn. For example, if 20% is in hand, Player Two would request . Players select a new card if no pair is made. Alternatively, remove the percent cards and play Fraction and Decimal Go Fish
• Similar to Go Fish, use either the basic or challenge deck with the decimal cards removed. Play Fraction and Percent Memory. Increase the difficulty of the game by finding a trio of cards (do not remove the decimal cards). Practice matching decimal numbers with their percentage by removing any fraction and image cards.
• Use either the basic or challenge deck to play Fraction, Decimal, and Percent War (thank you @math8_teacher for this idea!).

You can grab a copy of the Fraction-Decimal-Percent Card Deck here. The recording sheet and activity variations are included.

What would you do with these cards? Please share any new ideas that you may have in the comments section!

Adrienne 🙂