This fun Watermelon Fractions Activity helps prevent the summer “brain drain” during the school break.
Making learning fun is always the best way to teach at home. This is especially true during the summer break, when kids would much rather play on their devices or spending time outside.
However, it’s important that you do fun educational activities so they don’t lose the knowledge they have gained throughout the school year.
Enter this watermelon fractions activity. It’s a neat way to reinforce the math concept while connecting it with a favorite summertime treat. Plus, it involves painting which most children enjoy doing. Choose to do this activity on a warm, sunny day so they can get outside – and so you won’t have the mess of them paining in the house!
Watermelon Fractions Activity
Supplies:
- 3 white dinner-size paper plates
- Green paint
- Red paint
- Black marker or paint
- Paint brush
- Scissors
- Metal brad
- Hole punch
Directions:
Paint the center of each paper plate red.
Paint the outer circle of the paper plate green, leaving white between the two colors.
Using black paint or a permanent marker, draw seeds on each plate.
Leave one plate whole but cut the other two with one being in half and the other in quarters.
Label the pieces of plates you cut with the correct fractions.
For the halves and the quarter plates, punch a hole in the middle.Â
Place the two halves together and thread a brad through the holes. Fasten the brad on the back.
Do the same to fasten the quarter pieces of the paper plate watermelon together.
Once you have made this watermelon fractions activity, you can reuse it throughout the summer. Have the children twist the watermelon pieces around the brads to represent 1/4 and 1/2. This visual representation makes it easy for them to learn or remember how fractions work.