Percentages with Paper Plates and Poker Chips

Argerey Stapakis
Purpose: The purpose of this lesson is to help the students understand what percentages are, how
to derive percentages from fractions, and how to visually and numerically represent percentages
in context.
Context: This lesson will be taught to a small group of 6th grade students from a middle-class/
upper-middle class area. There are low crime rates, very high graduation rates, and a desire to
learn in an untraditional setting at this private school. The parents of these students believe that
the best education for their children does not always need to be conventional let alone standard.
In the past, the students have responded well to stimulation based exercises and discussion
centered learning techniques.
Materials Needed: blank paper plates for each student, fraction puzzle pieces of plates colored,
paper, markers, and poker chips in three different colors
Method: This lesson works best at a circular table where each student can see the teacher and
each other. The teacher will be seated during the lesson plan as well. Each student is given a
piece of paper and a marker of their choice and asked the question: Show, on this piece of paper,
what the first thing that you think of when you think of the word: fraction. Each student will
share his or her findings in the group setting. Questions such as: What lead you to this answer?
or Can you show us that in a different way? will be asked. The pronoun me will never be
used in reference to the teacher as it shows superiority.
Next, the students will be asked to show what they think of when they hear the word
percent or percentage. Have they ever seen this symbol % before and if so where?
Questions such as: Tell us why you chose to use this example to illustrate the term percent
and Use how you think the word percent means in a sentence will be asked. Following these
two discussion pieces, the students will be asked to try to connect their two pieces of paper. In
other words, the students will be asked: How do you think the words fraction and percent
connect? Questions such as: What do your two drawings have in common? and What might
they have not have in common? will be asked to encourage this connection.
The teacher will then distribute a blank paper plate to each student and ask him or her to
flip it so that it is upside-down. The teacher will have his or her own plate as well. The teacher
will then demonstrate how different pieces of a pie can show both percentages and fractions by
taking colored paper plate pieces and placing them on top of the white paper plate. The students
will have the same opportunity to do so. For example: If the teacher brings out the colored pieces
that are split into quads, the fractional aspect of the pie will be shown first followed by the
percentage aspect. Questions such as: What does this fraction or this percent represent? and
Display the percentage of 75% will be asked.
After the students seem to have a firm understanding of the paper plate demonstration
they will be given a sort of assessment. They will be given poker chips and asked to
demonstrate percentages. Questions such as: Can you illustrate what 20% looks like? or What
does 60% look like to you and why? will be asked to encourage further understanding.

Results: My classmates responded well to and enjoyed my same level approach. The hands-on
learning props (poker chips and colorful pie pieces) were also liked for both their visual and
sensory components. By using the free response option at the start, my peers commented that it
gave their brains a nice transition as opposed to diving straight into the material. The
untraditional approach to an assessment gave the students both confidence and a physical
understanding of what they had just learned. Its also great how you encouraged students own
thought processes (classmate). Overall, I enjoyed how organically my lesson plan unfolded. I
found that the less scripting I did, the more understanding ensued.