Teaching Fraction Basics, Post
Teaching Fraction Basics
Teaching Fraction Basics offers suggestions for parents and other non-teachers of children in Middle Primary School.
Children in the early grades are introduced to fractions in stages. Halves, quarters, thirds and eighths are the first fractions. These are taught in various ways.
By Grade 4, when children deal with centimetres and metres, they are then dealing with fractions of 10 and 100.
You can use the words ‘top number’ and ‘bottom number’. Then gradually introduce the terms numerator and denominator.
Top number is the numerator
Bottom number is the denominator
Children begin to manipulate fractions by adding and subtracting. They first start to add fractions with common denominators such as:
Same Denominators:
The denominator stays the same.
Addition of fractions can be represented visually in the following way. This makes it easier for children to understand in the early stages of learning about fractions.
Different Denominators:
- To add fractions the denominators must be the same.
- Say to your student: Whatever we do to the bottom number we must do to the top number. What did we do to the bottom number (5, see below) to make it 10. We multiplied by 2. So now we must multiply the top number by 2. Now we can add the numerators while the denominator stays the same.
- At this level, children will deal with obvious common denominators. To think of a number that is a common multiple of both denominators in the fractions, kids need to know their tables as required at their Year level.
Apply the same rule to subtraction of fractions.
Mixed Numbers: Changing mixed numbers to improper fractions or vice versa is another step.
Factors And Fractions Grade 4 is a free bundle of 5 worksheets. It has a sheet on factors. This is a good starting point for adding fractions with different denominators. Here is the link.
https://www.tutoringprimary.com/product/factors-fractions-grade-4-primary-school/
Buy a maths textbook for the home. By working through the textbook, parents know exactly where the child is at and how they are progressing. Maths Action series by W. Camage and M. McDonald is a one of many excellent texts. They are available online and moderately priced. Each book has 30 chapters and there are 4 pages to each chapter. Answers are at the back.