Tutoring

FRACTIONS

1. Work with your child on helping them to understand what halves mean. Take an orange and cut it into two equal pieces. Talk about how each one is called a half. Show what happens when you put the two halves back together again- you get ONE whole. What other things at home can you divide in half? (e.g., a chocolate bar, a marshmallow, an apple). Also, show how you can divide a bunch of things in half – (e.g., a box of pencils, a pile of buttons, a set blocks). Get your child to divide the blocks in half by saying, “one for me, one for you, one for me, one for you…until they are all gone.
After you have done this activity with your child (at least 2 times – but remember to keep it short and fun!), try to use real life examples of halves. For example, at dinnertime, you might ask you child to take half of the rice in a bowl. When it is time to tidy up blocks or toys, let them know that if they clean up half, you will clean up the other half.

2. Work with your child on helping them to understand what quarters mean. Take an orange and cut it into four equal pieces. Talk about how each one is called a quarter. Show what happens when you put the four quarters back together again- you get ONE whole. What other things at home can you divide in quarters? (e.g., a chocolate bar, a marshmallow, an apple). It is important to stress that all four pieces have to be the same. Also, show how you can divide a bunch of objects in quarters – (e.g., a box of pencils, a pile of buttons, a set blocks).
Ask your child to divide a pile of blocks up into quarters. To do this, I would get three volunteers (i.e., four people altogether). Also, would count out the number of objects beforehand – 16, 20, or 24 objects are good numbers. Have your child give out all the objects – one to each person at a time (one for me, one for you, one for you, one for you, one for me…) until there are none left. Ask each person to tell how many blocks they have. Everyone should have the same number of blocks. Talk about how each person has a quarter of the blocks.

Here is an extension activity. If you are able to, ask your child to take a pile of quarters and stack them into groups of four. Tell them that each group of 4 equals 1 WHOLE dollar.

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