Fractions for second grade
If you cut a pizza into 4 equal slices, each slice is one quarter of the pizza.
Half a chocolate bar, a quarter of an apple, three quarters of a glass of juice — those are all fractions.
In second grade we learn the first three: a half, a third, and a quarter.
What a fraction is
A fraction is part of a whole. To use one, two things must be true:
- The whole is divided into equal parts.
- We are looking at some of those parts.
If a pizza is split into 4 equal slices and you take 1 slice, you have one quarter of the pizza.
How we write fractions
We write a fraction with two numbers stacked, separated by a line:
- 1/2 = one half (the bottom number tells us into how many parts; the top tells us how many we are taking).
- 1/4 = one quarter.
- 3/4 = three quarters.
The bottom number is called the denominator (how many parts), the top number is the numerator (how many of them).
Important: equal parts
If you cut a pizza in half, both halves must be the same size. Otherwise it isn't half — it's a "small piece" and a "big piece".
A fraction always means equal parts of the whole.
What we will learn
In this topic:
- A half and a quarter of shapes.
- Shading parts of a shape (1/4, 2/4, 3/4 of a rectangle).
- A fraction of a group (½ of 8 apples = 4 apples).
Summary
- A fraction = part of a whole, where the whole is split into equal parts.
- We write it as 1/2, 1/4, 3/4.
- The bottom number says how many parts the whole has been split into.
- The top number says how many we are looking at.
- The parts must always be equal.