Description
What our Compare Percentages and Fractions lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Compare Percentages and Fractions teaches students how to compare percentages and fractions by converting them into decimals. At the end of the lesson, students will be able to convert percentages and fractions into decimals and then compare using <, >, or =. This lesson is for students in 5th grade and 6th grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the orange box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand.
Options for Lesson
Included with this lesson is an “Options for Lesson” section that lists a number of suggestions for activities to add to the lesson or substitutions for the ones already in the lesson. One optional addition to this lesson is to have your students play bingo using fractions, percents and decimals. If you have more advanced students, you can begin to add in decimals to the comparisons as well. You could also have your students line up in order based on a single card they are given as a class. Finally, try introducing real world scenarios with percent and fraction conversions.
Teacher Notes
The teacher notes page includes lines that you can use to add your own notes as you’re preparing for this lesson.
COMPARE PERCENTAGES AND FRACTIONS LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
Compare Percentages/Fractions to Each Other
The Compare Percentages and Fractions lesson plan includes two pages of content. The first step when you want to compare two different types of numbers is to convert them into the same form. If you’re comparing a percentage to a fraction, you need to convert them to another form. In this lesson, we will compare both numbers into decimals so that we can easily compare them.
How to convert a fraction to a decimal
To convert a fraction to a decimal, we need to divide the numerator by the denominator using either long division or a calculator. To convert the fraction 7/8, for example, we can use long division to figure out that the decimal form of this fraction is 0.875.
How to convert a percent to a decimal
To convert a decimal to a fraction, we need to first write the percent as a fraction and then divide the numerator by the denominator using the same steps as above. For a shortcut, you could also take the percent and move the decimal two places to the left to find the decimal form. For example, 78% = 73/100 = 0.73.
Sometimes, it seems like it would be easier to just convert one number to the other number’s type (for example, just changing the percent to a fraction and comparing the fractions). However, it’s much easier to compare decimals than fractions or percents, so this method actually takes less time.
We need to remember our three basic symbols for comparing numbers: > (greater than), < (less than), and = (equal to).
The lesson then includes a few examples. To compare 3/8 and 14%, we first convert 3/8 into a decimal using long division, which equals 0.375. We then convert 14% to a decimal, which equals 0.14. Finally, we compare the decimals to find that 0.375 > 0.14. Therefore, 3/8 > 14%.
The lesson ends by walking students through a few more examples, one of which includes an improper fraction and one of which includes a percentage over 100.
COMPARE PERCENTAGES AND FRACTIONS LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Compare Percentages and Fractions lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. You can refer to the guide on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each worksheet.
WAR ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For the activity, students will play the card game War using index cards marked with fractions and percentages. Students can also create their own decks and play at home with their friends or family.
COMPARE PERCENTAGES AND FRACTIONS PRACTICE WORKSHEET
For the practice worksheet, students will answer problems that require them to compare fractions and percentages, making sure to show their work.
SYMBOLS HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
The homework assignment asks students to solve comparison problems using <, >, or =.
QUIZ
This lesson also includes a quiz that you can use to test students’ understanding of the lesson material. For the quiz, students will answer two problems using <, >, or =. They will also
Worksheet Answer Keys
This lesson plan includes answer keys for the practice worksheet, the homework assignment, and the quiz. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
