From the article: Creative Ideas for Teaching Fractions
Fractions are fun! Well, once you learn them they are. Having a solid foundation of basic fraction concepts will make the advanced concepts easier to learn. Forum members shared their creative tips, now it's your turn. Creative Teaching Tips
Fraction tips
- My daughter had a hard time with fractions until I started to put them all into cookie or cake problems. Even though I would get a blank stare when I asked her to shorten a fraction like 3/12, if I'd tell her instead that she gets three out of 12 cookies and ask what fraction that is, she'd immediately reply "I get a quarter of them". Along the same line, she could easily understand what fraction of cake she'd get by inviting x children to her birthday party (1 cake shared by x children = 1/x. ) Be creative and expand your questions when your kid gets it! Example: You cut your cake to share it with 6 friends, but three of them end up bringing a sibling. How do you share the already cut cake equally and how much cake will you have left over? Another big help was to replace "divide by" with "shared by". Dividing a number is a concept. Sharing a cake is a problem they can picture in their heads, which makes it much more tangible.
- —Guest Shineonbeyond
Fractions for preschool and kindergarten
- I love teaching about fractions. I let my preschoolers and kindergarteners play with measuring cups and measuring spoons and ask them what numbers they see on them. Then I ask them how many of these it takes to make 1 cup, which I show them also. Then, of course we demonstrate with water. We also do quite a few cooking projects where I ask similar questions to reinforce that teaching. I also find teachable moments to bring up things like "This glass is half full," for example. After much repetition, they start to get it. Hope this helps.
- —Guest Monica
