Math Strategies for Teaching Fractions: Learning to Write Fractions

For this math lesson plan you will need the circles that you created earlier. You should have six circles, divided up into equal parts. Follow the directions below in this lesson plan.

• Ask students to take out their circles and a pencil.
• For each circle, have the students write the total number of equal parts on each circle. For instance, one circle has six parts to it. Have the children write the number "6" on each of these parts.
• Explain to the students that this number is going to be the denominator. This is the number that tells the total amount of equal parts being considered.
• Once the students have written the denominator on each one of their pieces, have them put a slash on top of it or beside it, depending on how you plan to display fractions to them. For instance, the one that has six pieces should have "/6" or the equivalent on each piece.
• Explain to the students that by putting the slash mark on there you are saying that the number before it will tell exactly how many pieces out of the whole group you are talking about.
• Have students write the number "1" before each slash mark to indicate that each piece is one part of the whole group. For instance, the one with six pieces should have "1/6" on each piece of the circle. Explain that the "1" is the numerator which defines how many pieces of the whole you are considering.
• Explain to students that this is how fractions are written. Each part of the fraction has a meaning. Review numerators and denominators with your students.

As you review numerators and denominators with your students, have them look at their circles and ask them to take out a certain amount of pieces from their circles and count them. For instance, if they take out 2 pieces from the circle that has 6 parts, what number would the numerator be for the pieces they removed? Have the students count the two pieces and realize that the number 2 would be the numerator. Have the students count the rest of the pieces and understand that 4 would be the numerator for those. Review and perform these exercises with your students until they seem to understand the concept of writing fractions. To further enforce the idea, pick a student for each question to come and write the fraction on the board.