Over the past few weeks, we’ve been learning all about fractions (which some of us dreaded at first as they can look confusing!) what they represent and how to work with them.

We started by practicing how to add and subtract fractions, making sure to find common denominators, simplify when possible, and check that our answers make sense. Some helpful tips we’ve used include: always rewriting fractions with a common denominator before adding or subtracting, reducing both the problem and the final answer when you can, and double-checking with a quick visual model if the numbers feel tricky.

After that, we moved on to multiplying fractions, which is often simpler: multiply the numerators, multiply the denominators, and then simplify the result.

This week, we began dividing fractions, and students learned the “keep–change–flip” strategy- keep the first fraction, change the division sign to multiplication, and flip the second fraction.

Here’s an example from one of our Year 6 student demonstrating how to divide fractions, convert the answer into a mixed number, and then simplify it further.