Instruct students on the relationship between fractions and decimals. Make sure that they understand how to convert between the two. Practice as a class by giving students one value, such as one fourth, and having them convert it to a decimal. Display the correct answer on the board and then follow up with more practice.
Pass out supplies to the students. Each child will receive two pieces of construction paper, one white and the other of their choosing; a ruler; crayons; and a pair of scissors.
Direct students to fold their plain piece of paper into 16 sections. The first fold will be from right to left in half, and then again for the second fold. The third and fourth folds will again be in half, only from top to bottom. After students unfold the paper, check to see that they have created 16 sections.
Have students use a ruler and black crayon to define the 16 folded sections of the paper by drawing lines along the folds.
Tell students to color one-fourth of the paper, or four small squares, with the same color crayon. Then they will color four more squares at a time with a new color. Making each set of four squares a new color will give them a reference of one-fourth, even after they cut the paper into 16 pieces.
Ask stusdents to cut along the black lines to create the 16 individual pieces. These pieces will be used to represent different fractions and decimals.
Repeat the practice activity of converting decimals and fractions. This time, though, after the students have correctly converted their answer, ask them to display the correct proportion on their second piece of construction paper, using their 16 squares. For example, if you asked them to convert .625 to a fraction, the correct answer is 5/8. They have 16 squares, so they would need to place the correct number of squares on their construction-paper mat. This would require 10 out of the 16 squares. Using this strategy will allow students to see how much of one whole 5/8 represents.