Fractions- Basketball Style!

Are your students learning about identifying, writing, and representing fractions?

Do you need any of these Common Core State Standards to be taught?

2.G.A.2, 3.NF.A.1, 3.NF.A.3b, 3.NF.A.3d, 4.NF.B.3

If so, this is the lesson for you and your future B-Ball players!

The Chicago Bulls must win tonight’s game if they want to advance to the next round of the conference semi-finals against the Heat. I am a huge Bulls fan will anxiously watching tonight’s game! When I found these goodies at a recent Party City trip, I tweeked my past Fraction Basketball post/idea that I used last year with my third graders. We used the following materials for some Fraction Basketball Math: – Plastic cups for the basketball hoops -Masking tape for the free throw line -Plastic balls for the basketball…crumpled paper will do too! The students BB players gathered their equipment, set up their court, free throw line, and basketball hoop.

   They taped the basketball hoop to the chalkboard ledge, the back of chairs, anything that was at a just right height for them!

Prior to game 1, basketball players practiced with a little warm up and experimented with underhand and overhand throws. Sad but true story: **EVERY** year I role play how to appropriately play this game with each other.  And EVERY year the other student beats me. I am really trying. I am not pretending to miss! They win! It is harder than it looks and that is why students experiment with adjusting their free throw line distance and their throwing stance.

The students then began shooting free throws and kept tallies of the number of baskets that were missed and made into the hoop. The player with the highest fraction won the game!

 They used their scorecard to keep track of the tallies and played three games total. After they played three games, they were given permission to adjust the free throw line closer or further, depending on what their fraction was. These girls got creative! After finishing their three games, they spiced things up a bit and made it more challenging by standing on one foot when shooting.

We stuck with the basketball theme for the week and students rotated to different basketball themed task cards.

For example, write the fraction of the nets that do NOT have basketballs in them.

If you are interested in purchasing the file from TpT, click on the file below.

Fraction Task Cards- Aligned to specific 2nd, 3rd, 4th grade CCSS

File description: Let’s get ready to play some basketball!!! All you need for this lesson: plastic cups, masking tape, and plastic balls. Or, you can just crumble up paper and make your own basketballs. Students record the amount of basket made/missed and then write the fraction. The biggest fraction is the winner!

The players will then rotate around the classroom and visit the different fractions task cards.

This ***Common Core Aligned*** file includes:
1. Directions for setting up the b-ball game
2. A student recording sheet (flip book) to keep score
3. 32 colorful fraction task cards
4. Recording sheet and answer key for the task cards

Save 10% by purchasing directly from my website.

Now, go shoot some hoops!