Hello,

I am doing work with 3.G.2 this summer (Partition shapes into parts with equal areas. Express the area of each part as a unit fraction of the whole. For example, partition a shape into 4 parts with equal area, and describe the area of each part as 1/4 of the area of the shape.) and am a little confused as I refer to the progression to better understand what the standard means and what it is building up to. It is is similar to me to 2.G.3 which seems to be setting a foundation for fractions, but then I read the progression for Grade 3:

“Students also develop more competence in the composition and
decomposition of rectangular regions, that is, spatially structuring
rectangular arrays. They learn to partition a rectangle into identical
squares (3.G.2) by anticipating the final structure and thus forming the
array by drawing rows and columns (see the bottom right example
on p. 11; some students may still need work building or drawing
squares inside the rectangle first). They count by the number of
columns or rows, or use multiplication to determine the number of
squares in the array. They also learn to rotate these arrays physically and mentally to view them as composed of smaller arrays,
allowing illustrations of properties of multiplication (e.g., the commutative property and the distributive property).

So to me it sounds like 3.G.2 is really building up for the understanding area more than continuing to build on understanding of fractions? Because as I look at various “unpacked standards” documents they seem to focus on the fraction described by partitioning rectangles into equal shares and do not mention same size squares, rows, or columns.

Thank you for your knowledge and assistance.