Drop Zone Teaching Strategies
Use these Drop Zone Teaching Strategies to integrate game play into your classroom and into discussion! These ideas include several essential questions, tips for game play, pause points and common misconceptions.
- Why/how are you able to add fractions to make whole numbers?
- Is there more than one way to add fractions?
Often your best move is to block your opponent by making a sum less than 1 or greater than 1 if it becomes a fraction your opponent cannot use. If you make a sum less than 1, it remains in the target area. If you make a sum greater than 1, it is reduced by 1 and becomes a fraction less than 1.
If you do not like any of your moves, you can click “Replace Bars” to get three randomly chosen bars. This will end your turn.
After each turn, the bars and targets that have disappeared will be replaced by randomly chosen fractions. New targets will always be less than 1/2. New tokens will also be randomly chosen to replace tokens that were earned.
After 10-15 minutes of game play, instruct students to pause the game. Facilitate a whole-class discussion about strategies for game play.
Students may have difficulty adding fractions with unlike denominators. Be sure to provide plenty of practice with this skill, and encourage them to use the game to explore the concept further.