Fractions

In the last few months, i've slowly introduced Fractions to the boy. I read a couple of Fraction books to him just to expose him to the concept.

I also gave him some half-minute verbal lessons. For instance, i'd ask him how many in our family own Crocs shoes, and he would say 2. I then ask him how many people are there in our family, he'd answer 4. So i told him that 2 out of 4 people in our family has Crocs Shoes! I would throw him similar questions using our everyday lives as the subject. And that was that until...

the school holidays when he asked and asked and asked and asked to 'play' with the Fractions game set on our shelf. I rejected him a couple of times (because i hadn't done any research on how to play it) but finally had no heart to decline him again. So we just dived into it without any lessons planned.

This was the first set we 'played'. It was passed down to me by my sister. I've NO idea where she got this from (and neither does she remember). I've seen this series on shapes, spelling etc everywhere but not the Fraction set.

Using the pieces to reinforced to Sonshine that 2 halves make a whole. He already knows this as well as 4 quarters make a whole, 3 one-thirds make a whole etc. But i still used them to reiterate it.

What i love about this fraction set is that i could also show him that 2 quarters equal a half!

We also discovered that one 1/5 and three 1/10s also make a half!

I was clearly out of my mind. I went on to make felt fractions for him in the midst of my crazy schedule! This was inspired by Counting Coconuts. But unlike her, i deliberately used the same colored felt ('cause i wanted to make all things equal except the size) and i didn't write down the fraction on each piece ('cause i wanted N to tell me himself).

Right after we finished that set, he asked to do another set! Here, he had to match the fraction to the correct picture.

This is the set, in case anyone out there is interested. I think i bought it from Toysrus.

At other times, i would grab a few pieces of Lego, say 3 yellow and 2 red. I would ask him how many out of how many are yellow (3 out of 5) and how many red? I think he's gotten it. :)