Fraction Strips
Mathing
Be sure to go to �File - Make a Copy in order to make this file your own for editing and sharing.
Objective
I was in our 5th grade math class and they have these really cool tiles called Fraction Strips. There is a 1 it is 8 inches long. Then 2 halfs, and 4 quarters and 8 eights. No big deal. Get into the thirds and fifths and I am toast.
Anyway I wanted to create them in Google Drawings. You may know there is not a ruler built into Drawings and no way to draw a box to a certain size. (Work around shown on Slide #__)
I played around with inserting an image of a ruler but in the end it did not help much.
So the process… lots of trial and error in getting it setup correctly.
Format Options
Drawings (and Slides) now has a Size format option
Insert Shape - Draw a rectangle
With the rectangle active go to Format - Format Options
Under Size & Rotation change to the desired Width and Height
Drawings
Open a New Google Drawings by going to Drive - New - More - Google Drawings
Open another Drawings by going to File - New - Drawing
Name one file Fraction Strips
The other file does not need to be named
Strip Size
To get the strip size to be accurate, I am not sure if there should be a border on the object as they do take up some space…
In the unnamed file�Go to File - Page Setup
Click the drop down to Custom
Change to Inches in the dropdown
8” width by 1” height
Insert Shape - Rectangle - Draw it to fit the palette
Page setup
Copy and Paste
Copy the rectangle on the non-named Drawings palette and Paste it into the Fraction Strips Drawings
Change the page size with the File - Page Setup to 4x1, 2x1, 1x1….2.66x1, 1.6
Do the Copy and Paste into the Fraction Strips file
I typed in the Google search box one fifth of eight inches and it gave me the result of 1.66 inches. Very easy to get the size that way
The Table
Eric Curts suggested in the article http://www.controlaltachieve.com/2017/02/fractions-slides-drawings.html to put in a table in order to create the fractions.
Set the border on the fraction where the middle bar becomes �the fraction line
The table looks great but there is no way to Group the strip �and the fraction as a table.
Type the numbers
Double click in the shape
Type in 1 / 2 and hit space, and the fraction is created ½
Adjust the font size, style, color, and alignment
*Insert Special Characters for some fractions. Not all are present
Even Better:�A student pointed out Insert - Word Art�This made for a uniform number�Resize to fit the boxes
Copy/Paste and Group
Set up the the fractions as desired. I filled them white with no outline. After the first was set up I copied and pasted and typed in new numbers to create the fractions.
Copy and Paste the word art fraction onto the Fraction Strip
Get them aligned as needed
Click on the strip, hold down Ctrl button and Click on the fraction table�Or click and hold and drag across the strip and the number to highlight them both
In the Arrange Menu click Group
File
The Google Drawings File is: https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1Oc8PlRBTob9S5xypzRPLuX-ViWOGlL5y7Kxy8rTYs-E/edit?usp=sharing
Be sure to go to File - Make a Copy to save the file to your Drive location