Fractions

What are Fractions?

A fraction is part of a whole. It's less than 1 whole thing, but more than 0. We use fractions all the time in real life. Have you ever ordered a quarter-pound burger? Or noticed that your gas tank is half full? Both of these are fractions of the whole amount—a whole pound of meat, or a whole tank of gas.

Fractions look a little like division expressions, but they aren't problems to be solved. They are a way of expressing an amount. Like numbers, fractions tell you how much you have of something.

Click through the slideshow to learn how fractions work.

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  Let's imagine that you have one pizza divided into 8 slices.

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  Say that you take 1 of the 8 slices.

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  You could say that you took 1/8 of the pizza. 1/8 is a fraction.

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  We write it like that because the pizza has 8 slices...

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  We write it like that because the pizza has 8 slices...and you're taking 1.

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  What if you take 2 slices?

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  Now you're taking 2/8 of the pizza.

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  The bottom number, 8, stayed the same, since the pizza is still divided into the same number of slices.

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  The top number changed, since we're talking about 2 slices now.

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  We could also say that 6/8 slices were left. There's less than 1 pizza, but more than 0 pizzas. That's why we use a fraction.

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  Let's look at another example of how you can use fractions to show part of something.

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  This coffee pot holds 4 cups of coffee. Right now it's full.

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  We could write this as a fraction: 4/4. 4 cups are there, out of 4 cups total.

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  As the morning goes on, the coffee pot gets emptier. Now there are 3 cups left, so it's 3/4 full.

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  Now, it's 2/4 full.

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  And now it's 1/4 full. We have less than 1 pot of coffee, but we still have more than 0 pots. We have a fraction of the pot left.

   

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