Top
Get Google Classroom Ready in 3 Easy Steps

How Harry Potter Helped with Dividing Fractions

Yes, you read that right.  Harry Potter helped my students understand how to divide fractions.  How?  Read on and I will explain.

Multiplying fractions was one of the easiest things for my students to grasp this year.  Not surprising, really.  If you can multiply numbers, you can multiply fractions.  I figured that dividing fractions would be just as easy.  Yeah, no.

My students understood the concept of dividing fractions.  They even understood why the reciprocal is used.  But, they couldn’t remember to actually DO IT!  So, they would solve the problem by multiplying the original equation without the reciprocal.  Wrong answers all over the place.

Here is where Harry Potter saved the day.  (To be honest the credit should really go to Hermione Granger, but I digress.)  I am a huge Harry Potter geek.  My students know it and have come to love the series as much as I do.  But, I never thought it would help my math instruction until I remembered the scene where Harry and Ron (along with everyone else) were trying to levitate the feather.  The spell was Wingardium Leviosa, but that part I was thinking about was the wand movement.  Swish and flick!

Swish and flick!  Immediately I thought Switch and flip.  Do you see the beauty?  During my next math lesson I asked my class if they remembered that scene and had them think about how it could relate to math class.  I was rewarded with some excited talking and they came up with the spell name and the wrist movement.  They weren’t quite sure how it related to our math lesson.  “Let’s practice,” I said.  I had them grab their pencils like a wand and while swishing in the air repeat after me:

When you want to divide fractions
you must switch and flip! Switch and flip!

They loved it!  We created an anchor chart and they copied some notes into their Math Notebooks.  There was much laughter during the lesson and more than a few students were overheard whispering, “Switch and flip!” while completing their work.

I love teaching math and I LOVE Harry Potter.  Blending them together in one lesson was awesome. You can check out a set of dividing fractions notes here.

How do you connect the things you love in the classroom?

Comments

  1. LOVE this! We do "Keep Change Flip" or KCF and my students ALWAYS switch it to KFC! Then they talk about fried chicken and then they Keep Flip Change instead and it makes no sense. Ack. Switch and Flip is so much better!! Thank you!!

  2. The Swish and Flick is genius!! My HP obsessed daughter had such a hard time with fractions, and she would have loved this. Thanks for sharing!

Leave a Reply to tidy teacher Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Teachers Love

These are great and my student loves them! These Boom Cards are perfect for my students to provide extra assignments to continue reinforcing the skills they are working on in their general ed class (virtually). I wish I had the skills to create them myself!
Stephanie R.

Volume Boom Cards
Stress-Free Teaching
2020-09-22T20:19:10-04:00
These are great and my student loves them! These Boom Cards are perfect for my students to provide extra assignments to continue reinforcing the skills they are working on in their general ed class (virtually). I wish I had the skills to create them myself! Stephanie R. Volume Boom Cards

Teachers Love

I love the way the graphic organizers are scaffolded so that students work on each step of a RACES answer. I'm a tutor who works with students with language LDs and this approach has been fantastic for them. Having the editable graphic organizers makes it easy for me to keep creating new and different pages for students who need to extra practice on a particular part of the RACES answer. Thank you so much!
Kate M.

Stress-Free Teaching
2020-09-22T20:24:32-04:00
I love the way the graphic organizers are scaffolded so that students work on each step of a RACES answer. I'm a tutor who works with students with language LDs and this approach has been fantastic for them. Having the editable graphic organizers makes it easy for me to keep creating new and different pages for students who need to extra practice on a particular part of the RACES answer. Thank you so much! Kate M. RACES Writing Strategy for Written Responses

Teachers Love

These are AMAZING!! Highly engaging for my students, constantly spiraling, and also gives me the information I need to see what we need to work on. Thank you so much!!
Kristi R.

Stress-Free Teaching
2020-09-22T20:25:15-04:00
These are AMAZING!! Highly engaging for my students, constantly spiraling, and also gives me the information I need to see what we need to work on. Thank you so much!! Kristi R. 5th Grade Math Spiral Review

Teachers Love

Amazing resource! Students loved working on this to show their parents during fall conferences. Their faces lit up as they went through the slides and read aloud their goals for the trimester and what they were proud of.
Jessica S.

Student Led Conference Digital Portfolio
Stress-Free Teaching
2020-09-24T19:42:58-04:00
Amazing resource! Students loved working on this to show their parents during fall conferences. Their faces lit up as they went through the slides and read aloud their goals for the trimester and what they were proud of. Jessica S. Student Led Conference Digital Portfolio
0
Stress-Free Teaching