Rita Edelman’s first graders really got into fractions last week by making stop-motion animated movies demonstrating their understanding of fractions of a group.  The movies were made on iPads using an app titled, MyCreate.  For this project, boys worked with partners to create a stop-motion animation that demonstrated a group of objects breaking into parts to show a fraction of that group.  After a brief demonstration of how the app worked, the students worked independently to practice using the iPad, the MyCreate app and tripods.  The next day, they selected a problem from an envelope and made a movie showing the specific fraction, for instance, “What is ⅓ of 12?”  Using color tiles, they took turns being the “director” and shared the responsibility of moving and photographing the action, making sure to give credit to themselves at the end.  After each student created his movie, the team made a new animation solving a word problem. This allowed the boys to connect their learning to a possible real life occurrence where the math they’ve learned could be applied.  The boys worked with great independence and hands-on manipulatives to solidify a difficult concept – and enjoyed every minute.  See one of many videos created below: