Rational Number Conversion Question Stack

Last week my students practiced rational number conversions.  That meant a review of long division.  This year only a few of my eighth graders needed a refresher on how to set up a problem for long division.  We put this reminder in their notebooks and a few students in each class walked us through the three examples.

Next I had my students do some practice with a Question Stack.  I first heard about Question Stacks from Sarah Carter and I love using this practice structure.  I had my students create their answer bank with the decimal side up so that when they flipped a card to reveal a fraction, they would have to do the long division to find the equivalent decimal.

If you wanted your students to practice converting decimals to fractions, they should create their answer bank with the fraction side up.  This question stack includes both terminating and repeating decimals and some of the repeating decimals only repeat the last digit.  That means your students will have to know how to change repeating decimals to fractions and not just the 9s in the denominator trick if you use this with them to practice decimal to fraction conversions.

Fraction Side

Decimal Side

I have done many a question stack with my classes over the last few years and one of the things that has always bothered me is the number of paper clips that are lost when students spread out the cards for their answer bank.  I think I've finally solved that problem!  This year I laminated the Question Stack Explanation Mat that Sarah shared and I drew a paper clip on the top-right corner.  I explained to students that while they are working, they should clip their paper clip to the mat.  Having a designated place to keep the paper clip worked because I didn't lose a single one that day with 85 students using the question stacks!

View/Download: Converting Fractions Notes and Question Stack here