Keep every calculation tied to a picture until the symbolic method is secure.
- Fraction wall first, symbols second. For each We Do question, students shade the two fractions on their printed wall before writing anything. The renaming step becomes visible: the shaded third literally sits on top of two sixths.
- Colour-code the renaming. Write the renamed fraction in a second colour (e.g. 1/3 in blue becomes 2/6 in green) so students can trace what changed and what stayed the same.
- Number-line jumps. Draw a 0–1 number line marked in sixths. Show 1/3 + 1/6 as a jump of two sixths followed by a jump of one sixth, landing on 3/6. This view makes answers past one whole (Section 4) intuitive — the jump simply passes 1.
- Bar-model worded problems. For Section 5, sketch the whole (a pizza, a ribbon) as a bar, partition it, and shade the parts named in the story before deciding whether to add or subtract.