Grade
3

What Comes Next? Quarter-Inch Creep

First, an orange rectangle is 1 and 1-fourth inches long. Second, an orange rectangle is 1 and 3-fourths inches long. Third, an orange rectangle is 2 and 1-fourth inches long. Last, an orange rectangle is 2 and 3-fourths inches long.

What do you notice?

What do you wonder?

What comes next?
Use the images of the rulers to show or tell what the next few pictures look like. Describe how you know.

A ruler measuring up to 4 and 1-half inches on quarter-inch grid paper.

Challenge

Will there ever be an orange rectangle that is a whole number of inches long? How do you know?
What might an earlier picture look like? How will the length of earlier rectangles compare to the first orange rectangle?

Follow-up

Create your own fraction pattern and share it with someone else. Ask them what comes next!

Printable Version

Google doc for printing and copying

Reference for Educators

Sample problems and solutions