Color Blocking 10x 10 Graph Sheets

42, 6th grade
Math & Visual Art 

Mrs. Hunter Stoves 6th grade math class was learning fractions, ratios, and percentages. We used a 10x10 graph block and some bright neon paper to demonstrate an understanding of percentages. Historically, middle school students have had difficulty with rational numbers for a variety of reasons. Sowder and Schappelle (1995) state that middle school students spend little time with problems that relate fractions and decimal numbers. Often, fractions and decimals are taught separately without providing students the opportunity to make the connection, which stunts their ability to fully understand rational numbers. Squares on a grid immediately made me think of American artist Ellsworth Kelly, a twentieth-century painter, and sculptor who is recognized and admired for his contributions to abstract art. Kelly used a grid system, placing a variety of warm and cool colors against one another to create optical effects on the canvas. We worked to help students demonstrate the understanding and it was interesting to see the investment in the images they created and how they worked together to help one another understand and complete the integer portion of the project.   Students engaged in ways that allowed them to model rational numbers in various representational systems: pictorially, verbally, symbolically with numbers, and with physical manipulatives using the grid and color squares