Help Yourself
Prototype : A Piece of Cake
Description
The game was designed to help students from key stage 2– 6 understand fractions.
How it works
The game is based on a physical starter activity that has worked well in the classroom to build intuitive ideas of fractions as 'shares'. The advantage of the online version is that it allows lots of iterations to be explored quickly and easily; additionally, students can explore the concepts on their own for consolidation.
What open source stuff does it use?
This prototype has been created in Flash using Actionscript. While it doesn't make use of anything open source in its creation, we are releasing the source code for anyone to access or modify.
How could it be used in the classroom?
The game is suitable for use at Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3. At the higher end it can be used up to Level 6 ('They understand and use the equivalences between fractions') and can also support more basic ideas in Key Stage 2 Knowledge Skills and Understanding of 'Numbers and the Number System' in sections 2 d-g.
Unless students are playing the game individually, it works best if the teacher has the game already set up as students enter the room - in other words, don't waste time going through the instructions, simply explain that each student who sits down in turn needs to sit where they will get the most cake.
An ideal set-up to begin with is 3, 4 and 5 cakes on the tables. This allows some fairly simple comparisons between fractions to be established and also quickly leads to situations of equivalence, which the game is designed to explore. For younger groups tables with 1, 2 and 3 cakes will work well.
Students may be asked in turn to think about which table they should sit their character at. All students can work this out; if help is needed, or for a different visual aid, the fraction wall button may be clicked to show comparisons between different fractions. When they have made the move - characters will only stay at a table if they are sat at the table which will give them the most - all students can then be asked to work out what fraction of cake they are going to get. At some point there will be two or more options for which table to sit at, and these points can be used, with the fraction wall if necessary, to explore ideas of equivalence.
The game can be used as a springboard into more advanced work. Students could work in groups to work out which combinations of numbers of cake will lead most quickly to equivalent fractions, or how many points of equivalence will be encountered between various numbers of students sitting down.
Once the starter is finished, students could be given worksheets with example situations from the game, with questions for them to explore.
Outcomes: Students should be able to recognize equivalent fractions and understand the idea of a fraction as a part of a whole.
Where to go from here
This prototype was created by Alan Killip, Johnny Ball, Kester Brewin, Izem Onadin Elizabeth Treece and Hannah Wise
For more information please email: openlab@bbc.co.uk
Download Source code (at your own risk - please read the Terms and Conditions).
Submit an Idea to the Open Lab Community detailing how you would like to see this prototype develop