The longest equivalent fraction chain in the world, with 15,000 links, was created by 23 students in Kimberly Sander’s third grade class at Jordan Hills Elementary. Each link in the chain was a handwritten fraction equivalent to one-half, stretching from ½ to 15,000/30,000.

Students and parents helped spread the chain, which stretched back and forth across the school yard several times, on May 25 to document the feat. Sanders reached out to the Guinness Book of World Records to witness the accomplishment but received no response.

“We may not receive a Guinness World Record, but these kids are record breakers in my opinion,” Sanders said.

Students worked on creating the equivalent fraction chain for three months.

Sanders had originally assigned students to create fraction chains with seven links of equivalent fractions to help them understand the concept. The students were inspired to create even larger chains.

“It started with just seven chains, and then they wanted to make one to go around the classroom, and then it snowballed into this,” Sanders said.

This was the first time Sanders had done a fraction chain activity during a math unit in her third grade ALPS class. “I’d never done it before and I’ll never do it again. It’s been a deal,” she said.

She said it took a lot of time, hard work and organization. Students would make the chains in chunks of 20 to create chains of hundreds and then thousands.

During the first month of the project, the students worked on the project sporadically. Then it became necessary to work on it every other day until the final week before the deadline, when students worked to complete the chains every single day. 

Parents said their students brought home strips of paper to make chains during both winter and spring break.

Third-grader David Evershed tried to get to school early a few times a week to work on the chains. “He was really excited about the project,” said his mother, Emily Evershed.

Whenever their motivation waned, Sanders reminded her students that they had committed to a goal and that the Guinness representatives were expecting a world record breaking chain on May 25. Sanders was proud and impressed when students completed the chain the day before the deadline.

“They got to where they could just mentally get those chains done in about 30 minutes—written and stapled—so I felt like we set a world record of just getting them done fast,” Sanders said. “It was just amazing.” 

Principal Kaleb Yates said it was a great activity.

“There’s the math component, but even more than that is the camaraderie of everybody wanting to build something together and have fun doing it,” he said. The project also kept the students engaged into the last week of the school year. “With this, they’re 100% focused on their goal and accomplishing it,” Yates said.

Sanders said the project was a great lesson in teamwork, perseverance, setting and reaching goals and achieving success. She said the hardest part of the project was keeping the chains organized. They were kept in large plastic bags in the classroom. On the final day, the chains were pulled from the bags, spread across the field, assembled into numerical order, and stapled together. The students were thrilled at the sight of their hard work colorfully displayed on the school field.

“It feels really crazy seeing it all be spread out,” third-grader Nolan McDonald said. “We had a ton of trash bags in our classroom and then it didn’t seem like a lot but the amount of chains inside the bags just created all of this.” λ