This activity allows students to practice comparing fractions and apply the comparison strategies they learned through a game. Students use fraction cards from an earlier lesson to play a game in groups of 2, 3, or 4. To win the game, a player must have the greater (or greatest) fraction of the cards played as many times as possible. This is Stage 6 of the Compare center.

Consider arranging students in groups of 2 for the first game or two (so that students would need to compare only 2 fractions at a time), and arranging groups of 3 or 4 for subsequent games. Before students begin playing, ask them to keep track of and record pairs of fractions that they find challenging to compare.

• Invite groups to share some of the challenging sets of fractions they recorded and how they eventually determined the greater one in each set.
• As one group shares, ask others if they have other ideas about how the fractions could be compared. 

This activity prompts students to compare multiple fractions and put them in order by size. The work gives students opportunities to look for and make use of structure (MP7) in each set of fractions and make comparisons strategically. For instance, rather than comparing two fractions at a time and in the order they are listed, students could first classify the given fractions as greater or less than or 1, look for fractions with a common numerator or denominator, and so on.

If time is limited, consider asking students to choose two sets of fractions to compare and order.

• See Lesson Synthesis.