Math · Grades 5–6 and 7–8
The Pet's recipe card
Your child adds, takes away, multiplies and divides fractions in a recipe, and says why with bars drawn to scale.
Your child puts right the Pet's recipe card: first the strip two amounts both fit on, then how much is in the jug, what is left, half of a fraction and how many scoops, or at Grade 7–8 a recipe scaled up, fractions divided, which lemonade is stronger, and a card that doesn't add up.
- Grades 5–6 and 7–8
- 15 min
- Nothing to prepare
- On the screen
Free to sign up.
Is it a good fit?
- Ready if Your child knows that two quarters make a half.
- Too much today? Start with Pizza fractions: a part of one whole, named and drawn, before parts are added.
- Too easy? The Grade 7–8 level: a recipe scaled up, fractions divided, which lemonade is stronger, and a card that doesn't add up.
What your child practises
- Adding fractions with different bottoms
- Taking fractions away
- Half of a fraction
- Dividing by a fraction
- Scaling a recipe (Grade 7–8)
“Are the pieces the same size?”
If your child says something like this, in their own words, the idea has landed. Finishing the rounds means they took part; this is the learning.
Your part
- Nothing for the game itself
- Each question has a Read it to me button
Take it off the screen (optional)
Halve or double a real recipe together, and write every new amount down.
More like this
The full design
What it is
Make the pieces the same size before you add or take away; times a fraction makes less, and dividing by one makes more. The Pet cooks from a recipe card and gets the fractions wrong the way children do ("1/2 + 1/3 = 2/5. Add the tops, add the bottoms!"); your child puts it right with bars drawn to scale.
How it goes
The recipe card sits under the question, its line lit; under it the amounts as bars on one width, and in three rounds the strips to try under them, each a button whose lines meet the bars' edges or fall between. Then three answers. A strip or an answer that is not the one is marked "not this one", and the Pet says why; every fraction is drawn top over bottom.
The Pet
It believes its own working, never your child: tops and bottoms add, 3 take 5 is nothing, times makes bigger, dividing makes smaller, 2 more people is 2 more cups, more lemon is stronger, and a card is always right. When a round is won it says what the bars showed. Its dare is the next step up: at 5–6, a recipe for 4 made for 6; at the top, a real recipe at home, halved or doubled, every amount written down.
By band
Four rounds a play. 5–6: a half and a third in one jug (first the strip both fit on, sixths), 5/8 taken from 3/4 of a bag (first eighths; the Pet says none is left), half of 2/3 of a cup (the Pet thinks times makes bigger), and how many quarter-cup scoops make 2 cups (the Pet thinks dividing makes smaller). 7–8: a recipe for 4 made for 6 (the Pet adds 2 cups), how many 3/8-cup pots 3/4 cup fills, which of two lemonades is stronger (the Pet compares the lemon, not the part), and a cake card whose amounts make more than the cup it says (first twelfths).
What it grows
The standards ask a Grade 5 child to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators by making them alike, and to multiply a fraction by a fraction and divide with unit fractions, seeing that multiplying by a fraction less than 1 makes a smaller amount (Common Core 5.NF.A.1–2, 5.NF.B.4–7); a Grade 6 child to divide fractions by fractions (6.NS.A.1) and to use ratios (6.RP.A.3); and a Grade 7 child to work with proportional relationships (7.RP.A.2). The game asks for the amount and the reason, never a term to define.
Done, and what counts as evidence
Done means four recipes put right. "Asked are the pieces the same size?" is an observation you may keep. The best record is off the screen: a real recipe your child halves or doubles, every new amount written down.
What's personal
Nothing: every recipe is written for the game, nothing is bought or priced, and no family facts are used. The Arabic lines are written in Arabic, every fraction as in English.