Fraction Operations QR Code Scavenger Hunt

New to QR code scavenger hunts?  Start here with my post about decimal operations!

With the coming of the Common Core Standards, I have had way less time to spend on fraction operations with my sixth graders.  Because I knew this ahead of time, I definitely spent more time with them last year as fifth graders making sure they mastered fraction addition and subtraction and has some basic understandings of fraction multiplicaiton.

Over the last few weeks, we have been hard at work making sure ALL of the sixth graders have mastered addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions.  They have worked really hard and are doing a great job!  As one final review before taking our unit test, I created a QR code scavenger hunt for them to get one last practice with all that arithmetic.  I purposely made it just number computation because over the week, that is what they seemed to need the most.  They really seemed to have mastered story problems but needed just a bit more practice with computation.

Here is what a QR code scavenger hunt looks like.  I simply print this in color and cut it apart along the thin lines and it is ready to go!  This one has 16 cards and was a great way for my students to practice fraction operations. 

The kids had SO MUCH FUN doing this.  After weeks of thinking about fraction operations, they were getting a bit tired of it and this really seemed like something new and exciting.  Even though they were practicing the same skills, they were very engaged and excited and were literally running from card to card.  I love seeing kids excited to practice math!  There will be a lot of QR code scavenger hunts in their future!

We decided to use the gym for this activity and really give kids a chance to move around.  I put the start card by the door and had the students spread the rest of them around the perimeter of the gym.  (I made sure they were good and mixed up first!)

 The students worked in groups of 2-3 so that each group had a digital device.  We used a mix of iPads, iPods and other tablets.  Any digital device with a camera and a QR code reader app works great!  (there are free QR code apps- we have had great success with Scan).  We used a mix of school owned and student owned devices.

A peek at a student record sheet.  You can see there are a lot of mixed numbers and a good mix of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. 

After scanning the start card, students get a problem.  They use their record sheet, pencil and clip board to figure out the answer.  They then look for the card with the answer on it.  When they find that card, they scan it and continue around the room until they scan the final code.  When they scan the final code, they get a message telling them they are finished.  If students get an answer wrong, they won't be able to find the answer they got on a card and quickly figure out that the better check their work.  It is a great way for students to self-monitor.

Several students work on solving a fraction operation questions

Ready to try this out with your students?  It is available here!  If your students are working on decimal operations check this out!


Here are a few more pictures

Back of the record sheet

Here is a screen shot of the final answer key.