Math fraction Story Problem Of The Week Contest For fifth grade students, fun learning activity  by Annette Ilowiecki

Fraction Problems of the Week
The problem of the week was a contest for my students to participate in if they chose to accept the challenge. I posted the contest rules, a sample of a winning entry and a non winning entry, and the problem on a "Fraction Action" bulletin board with colorful clip art and pictures to illustrate each story. My classroom laptop computer and home computer  was a good source of  clipart and word art graphics and produced professional documents to post. The kids were allowed to work on these in their spare time-(mornings before the bell rang, if they finished an assignment early...) For a contest entry to be valid it had to have 1. A proper title: Name, Date, and week number. 2. Each question written out with neat hand writing and proper punctuation. 3. Each answer written in a complete sentence with correct punctuation. 4.All equations and strategies used to solve the problems had to be shown.  I always tested the problems first and checked them with a calculator to make sure they would divide out evenly. My handy computer stored all the problems of the week, with my hints, tips and behind the scene notes so I did not have to reinvent the wheel every week.
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During the week my students could show me their entries, and explain to me how they were solving the problem. As needed, I gave them hints to recheck their work, punctuation and anything that needed corrected. I was careful to not give them the answers or do it for them. All entries had to be turned into me before lunch on Friday. Winners were announced in the afternoon before going home. Everyone who turned in an entry with the right answer AND meeting all 4 points of "a winning entry" won.

To have fun with the fraction theme, the prizes were divided equally among all winners. The class had to figure out what each students "share" was and tell me what fraction that amount represented. Example: If the whole prize was 30 M&M’s and there were three winners, each student got one third of the prize (10 M&M’s each). Participation in this contest accomplished several SOL (standards of Learning) objectives. It reviewed concepts (fractions are equal parts of a whole) and had built in practice of basic math operations (add, subtract, multiply, divide). It encouraged students to use problem solving, reading and writing skills, sort out relevant information, and pay attention to details. It was fun. The contest was set up so everyone who took some initiative could be a winner.

Week #1
Mrs. Fraction has 24 students in her class. On Tuesday 1/4 of her class stayed home with the flu.
On Tuesday how many students stayed home? How many students came to class?
                                                  
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Week #2
Mrs. Fraction is baking 1/2 of the biscuits for her family reunion dinner. Her sister is baking the other 1/2. Sixty people are going to be there. They want to make sure they have enough for each person to have 2 biscuits. Her recipe will make 15 biscuits per batch. She needs 2 and 1/4 Cups of flour for each batch. Use this information to answer the following questions:

1. How many biscuits in all are needed for the dinner? _______________
2. How many biscuits will Mrs. Fraction need to bake? ___________
3. How many biscuits will her sister need to bake? _____________
4. How many batches of biscuits will Mrs. Fraction mix up? ___________
5. How many cups of flour will Mrs. Fraction need? _________________
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Week #3
Mrs. Fractions Dog, Barky has 4 puppies. Mrs. Fraction is going on a 5 day vacation. She has to leave Barky and her puppies at home. She wants to make sure she leaves enough dog and puppy chow for them to eat while she is gone. Each puppy eats 1/2 pound of puppy chow per day. Barky eats 1 and 1/5 pound of Dog Chow per day.

Questions: Before Mrs. Fraction leaves on her trip:
1.How many pounds of puppy chow will Mrs. Fraction need to buy?
2.How many pounds of Dog Chow will she need to buy?
3. Show the equations /strategies you used to figure this out.
4. Label your answers
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Week # 4
On Saturday Mrs. Fraction patted Barky on the head, blew all her puppies a kiss and went shopping at JC Penny’s 25% off sale. Hint: 25% is equal to 1/4.
She was very happy about this shopping trip because all the things she wanted to buy, a snazzy leather jacket, a warm sweater, a pair of driving gloves and a sweet smelling bottle of perfume were all on sale.
The regular price for the Jacket was $100. The regular price for the sweater was $20. The gloves were $8. The very good smelling bottle of perfume was $4. On her way home she stopped at the pet store and bought Barky and her puppies chew toys. These cost her $10. She didn’t mind though because Barky is such a nice dog and has beautiful puppies.
Questions
1. What are the sale prices of each item, jacket, sweater, gloves, and perfume?
2. How much money in all did Mrs. Fraction spend shopping that day?
3. Show all the equations you used to figure out all of the problems.
4. Label all of your answers.

**Hint: Notice that the price of each J.C. Penny item can be divided into four equal parts. Remember that 25% off would be the same as taking 1/4 away from the whole.
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