1. How can we tell which portions are the same amount?
Do you ever share your food with your friends?  Do you try to share equally?  How do you know if everyone is getting the same amount?  How do you decide to split the food that is being shared?  Have you ever argued about who got more?  In today’s lesson, you will explore how to divide pieces of licorice into equally sized portions and how to deal fairly with any “leftovers.”  As you work, keep these questions in mind:
How can we represent it?   (That’s another way of asking how you can show it.)
How can we tell which portions are the same amount?
Is there another way to share?

2. FAIR SHARES
How would your team share 5 pieces of licorice?  What about 9 pieces?  Today you will work with a new team to describe how to distribute the “licorice” fairly among different numbers of people. 
Your task: For each situation below, explain how to share the licorice fairly among all team members.  For each case, represent the amount of licorice each team member will receive with pictures, words, and numbers
Team W has 3 members and gets 5 pieces of licorice.
Team X has 5 members and gets 9 pieces of licorice.
Team Y has 6 members and gets 10 pieces of licorice.

3. 2. Your teacher will designate your team as a W, X, or Y team and assign a specific amount of licorice to share.  Working together, prepare a poster and a presentation that explains how you could divide your team’s licorice among your team members fairly.  For example, if you are in a W team, you will explain how to divide 5 pieces of licorice among 3 team members.  Be sure to plan your presentation so that each member of your team has a chance to explain something mathematically meaningful.  Your poster and presentation should include:
A diagram or diagrams showing how the licorice was divided.
A division number sentence representing the problem.
Words that explain what portion of licorice each person gets and why.
An explanation of how you know that you are sharing fairly. 

4. 3. Consider all of the strategies for sharing licorice that your classmates presented.
If your teacher passed out licorice in exactly this way (giving 5 pieces to teams of three, 9 pieces to teams of five, and 10 pieces to teams of six, would it be fair?  In other words, would all students in the class get the same amount of licorice using the strategies developed by your classmates?  How can you tell? 
In which team did members get the most licorice?  The least? 
How else could the licorice be distributed?  Is there a way of ensuring that everyone gets an equal part?  Find as many ways as you can to show what you mean. 
4. SHARING AND COMPARING
If you were given a choice to receive one of the following amounts of licorice, which would you choose?  Be prepared to explain your decision. 
Option #1:   of one whole piece and   of another whole piece.
Option #2:   of one whole piece and   of another whole piece.

5. Tonight’s homework is…
Review & Preview, problems # 5-14
Show all work and justify your answers for full credit.