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Watch: What are fractions?

In this clip Snoot and Fin show you what fractions are using their tasty pizza!

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Watch: Fractions with Supermovers

Now, let's get moving! To find out more about fractions, watch this Supermovers film with 'The Denigineers' Joe Tracini!

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What is a fraction?

A fraction tells you how many parts of a whole you have. Let's take a look at some different fractions.

When you divide something into two equal parts, each part is called a half.

When you divide a whole object into four equal parts, each part is called a quarter.

Whole, halves and quarters
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How do you write a fraction?

Fractions are shown by having one number on top of another, for example:

A quarter showing numerator and denominator

You would pronounce this fraction as either 'one quarter' or 'one over four' or 'one out of four.'

  • The top number is called a numerator. This shows how many parts you have (1 in this example).

  • The bottom number is called a denominator. This shows you how many parts the whole object has been divided into (4 in this example).

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Fractions in daily life

scales

Fractions are really important and we use them lots in daily life.

  • We use them when telling the time to know when it is 'quarter past', 'half past' and 'quarter to' the hour.

  • We use them when we’re baking, for example 'use half a kilogram of flour'.

  • We even see fractions in shops when there are sales, for example 'Half price cakes!'.

scales
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Example 1

Pizza divided into sixths

Think about a pizza that has been cut into 6 equal pieces.

The denominator (bottom number) would represent the whole of the pizza, so the number would be 6.

The numerator would then represent the amount of slices that you are talking about. So if you had eaten 2 slices of pizza, you would say that you’ve eaten ÂČ⁄₆ of the pizza.

To work out what fraction of the pizza is left, you simply count the remaining slices. So if 2 out of 6 slices have been eaten, there are 4 slices left. You can write this as 4⁄₆

Pizza divided into sixths
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Example 2

Now, look at this rectangle that has been divided equally into 10 pieces.

 4 red squares in a 10 square bar model

If you count how many red squares there are, you can find the fraction of red squares. So 4 squares out of 10 are red. The fraction is ⁄₁âžö

What fraction of squares aren’t red? Count how many there are. 6 squares are not red, so therefore that is ⁶⁄₁âžö of the squares.

Instead of counting the squares, you could use your subtraction knowledge to work it out.

If there are 10 squares in total and 4 are red, there must be 6 squares that aren’t.

10 - 4 = 6. So as a fraction that is ⁶⁄₁âžö

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Activities

Activity 1

Can you remember how to label the fraction?

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Activity 2

Can you place the correct number of sea lions on the land and in the water to show that ⅗ of them are in the water?

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Activity 3

Have a go at this quiz to test your knowledge of fractions!

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NEW! Play Guardians: Defenders of Mathematica - the Halloween update. game

Experience Mathematica as you’ve never seen it before, with all-new backgrounds and costumes for Halloween. Available for a limited time only. Use your maths skills to save the day before it's too late!

NEW! Play Guardians: Defenders of Mathematica - the Halloween update
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More on Fractions

Find out more by working through a topic