Exploring Grades 3-5 Mathematics Activities Found Online

Let's say you are a Grades 3-5 teacher in search of an activity sheet on different fraction notations. A search in May 2022 on the popular resources sharing site TeachersPayTeachers (TpT) yielded 2,832 results, 105 of which were free. With so many options, how would you go about choosing a resource for your students? What would factor into your decision? How would your learning goals, mathematics standards, or other factors influence your choice? How much would you consider visual appeal? Would cost affect your choice? Asking these types of questions when searching for and choosing or adapting resources is extremely important. The article provides two examples that highlight some of the different activity sheets. Both focus on representing fractions in various forms. Activity 1 is free, is decorated for St. Patrick's Day, and emphasizes two types of fraction notations. A teacher might choose it in March to focus students on commonly used fractions and their decimal equivalents. Activity 2 is for sale, is decorated with children holding dice, emphasizes three types of fraction notations along with a visual representation, and is part of a packet with additional matching and cut-paste activities. A teacher might choose it for its options of ways to focus on multiple representations with visual connections. Although this is a made-up example, it highlights a growing phenomenon. Following the rise of online teacher-created resource-sharing sites such as Amazon Ignite, Pinterest, and TeachersPayTeachers, the availability of teacher-created mathematics resources has increased exponentially, leading many teachers to supplement their district-supplied curricula (Silver, 2021).