Lesson video

Hi everyone, my name is Mister Whitehead and I am here to teach your maths lesson.

Before we get started, it is so important that you are in a quiet space and free of distractions.

So if you need to move away now from the television, from a tablet, or any siblings that you've got running around you, please press pause, take yourself somewhere quiet, where you can give me your undivided attention for the next 20 minutes.

Press play again when you're ready to start.

In this lesson, we will be Drawing, Identifying, Naming and Writing Fractions.

Our agenda for the lesson, we're going to start off with a paper folding activity, before we spend some time looking at the parts of the fraction, then representing fractions, all of which will leave you set up for your independent task to end the lesson.

Things that you're going to need pen or pencil, some paper to write on a book or a pad and a ruler.

If you have it as well this will be really helpful, some pieces of paper.

They can be rectangles, they can be squares, whatever's easiest for you to get your hand on, but if you could get maybe three, four, five pieces of paper as well, by all means ask your parents or carer to help you.

Then we will use those smaller pieces of paper in our first activity.

Press pause, go and get yourself sorted with those items then come back and we'll start.

Okay so the small pieces of paper first, for this paper folding activity.

Using your paper, how many different fractions can you represent by folding it? Once you folded it, within these new parts that you've created, can you record the fraction of the whole that each part is? Press pause, have some fun, folding your paper to represent different fractions, come back when you're ready.

Are you ready to take a look? Hold up your paper for me, let me see.

Fantastic hold up another one.

And another one.

Really, really good.

Compare what you have created, with mine.

So I've represented quarters, with all of my different sized pieces of paper, and I've tried to represent quarters in different ways.

So first of all, this way, four parts, each part one quarter of the whole, I then changed and just had vertical folds on this next one four parts altogether.

Diagonal folds, and with this one, I really liked this actually, because I've got some diagonal folds and the horizontal.

But in all of these, I've got my four parts and not forgetting my last one, the dark grey one, and had fun here as well, with the horizontal and diagonal to create these four parts.

What do you reckon? What do you think about my paper and how I folded it? You can tell me it's okay, if you're not sure about one of them.

Which one? Which colour? Dark grey.

What's wrong with that? What are you not liking about it? Yes, fantastic spot.

It really stands out now doesn't it? Compared to the others.

The others, the other four pieces of paper have been folded into equal parts, four equal parts, so they all represent quarters.

Whereas this dark grey one, the parts are not equal.

I have folded into four parts, but they're not equal, so they do not represent quarters.

And that language, I'm so glad you spotted it because that language of equal is so important when working with fractions.

We are like dealing with a whole, a shape, a set, a number, a division, and we are splitting, dividing into four or two or three, depending on the fraction equal parts, and then we'll be working with a number of them.

Regardless of how many equal parts, they must be equal, for us to be able to work with them as fractions.

Really good spot.

Thank you for all of your paper folding.

You can push that to the side for now and let's move on.

Let's have a think now about when fractions are used? Pause again and take a few moments.

Maybe note some ideas note down, onto your paper.

When do we use fractions outside of the classroom? Away from maths? In the real world? Come back when you've got some ideas.

How did you get on? Hold up your paper let me see your lists.

Keep your paper still so I can read it.

There we go, looking good.

Compare to what I've got on the screen now maybe tick them off, if you thought of these ones too, or add them to your list, if you didn't.

So, some ideas that I came up with, I thought about shopping half price sales fantastic that's a really good saving.

Sporting events, half time.

The halfway line along the pitch.

Thinking about telling the time we're doing that all of the time throughout the day, half past, quarter past quarter two.

When we're thinking about volume, is your glass half full or half empty? Some positivity in there as well.

Or when we're thinking about mass or area.

Of course lengths, throughout all of those different types of measurements, quarter of a cake, a third of a cake, we talked about half of the glass.

How many tenths of a metre? The length is, it's six tenths of a metre.

The moon at night when you can see it.

There's sometimes the way the moon looks, we would describe it as maybe the half moon.

And of course with money as well.

Now, it's unlikely you're going to talk about this being one and a half pounds, you're likely to talk about it being one pounds 50, but of course 50 is half of a pound.

So we have all of these different areas within which fractions are being used, in the real world in your day to day life.

And I wonder how many of those you came up with are on your lists as well? Maybe show me on your hands a number, how many of those had you thought of? And how many other ideas did you have? Fantastic starts.

Here are, some speech bubbles and boxes, around three different shapes.

I'd like you to have a read and decide whether or not, you agree or disagree, with what's been said.

Press pause, give them a read and come back when you're ready to take a look at them.

So what do you think? How many of those? One, two, is five, how many did you agree with? How many did you disagree with? So you can hold up your hand and show me in your fingers or call out a number.

Okay let's take a look.

Let's look at them one at a time.

So starting with this one, half means two parts.

There are two parts, each part must be half.

Is any of that right? All of it, some of it? Some of it.

All of the time, some of the time? Okay.

So, often when we're talking about half, we are thinking about a whole divided into two parts.

Yes, but, what is it about those two parts that must happen? They must be equal, if they're going to represent a half each, therefore you can't have a bigger half, no you can't have a bigger half, because each of the parts must be equal.

So, I'm agreeing, you can't have a bigger half and I'm going to add to the other one, two equal parts.

And if that were added in, I think that person would realise that for this picture, it doesn't represent half.

How about this one? One part is shaded and two parts are not.

I mean yes that's true, isn't it? One part is shaded two are not.

So this is one and two, one half they've made a little bit of a mistake there, haven't they? What fraction is actually shaded? Tell me? One third.

The whole has been divided into three equal parts, one of those equal parts is shaded.

So the shaded part is one third of the whole.

And that's often a mistake that gets made when thinking about fractions, we must think how many equal parts in total, how many of them are we talking about? How about this last one? Did you agree or disagree? Okay.

So the fraction shaded grey, can't be the same as the fraction shaded red, they are not the same size.

I understand what that person's saying, but when we look really closely, we can see that along that top row of grey, we've got two, four, six, eight.

So there's eight at the bottom 16 plus another four from each of the sides and another at 24 altogether, are grey.

How many are red? Six, 12, 18, 24 are red.

So the same amount, of the whole shape is grey, that is red.

We've got 24 red, 24 grey.

So although they are arranged differently within that whole, they both represent the same fraction because they both represent the same proportion of the whole.

Let's think now, about the parts of a fraction.

I want you to pay really close attention to the order in which the fraction appears, as well as the questions.

So, notice this part first, and I'm going to ask you to think about what that's called, then the number four appeared again what's that called? Another one, watch again.

Really important order, for representing fractions like this, that can help us to think about their meaning.

So the questions for you then, what is this line called? Why do we need it? Do you know what it's called? Can you call it out? Okay.

How about this bottom one? What's it called? And why do we need it? Call out the name.

Okay, and the top question, what's the number called? Why do we need it? Call out the the name.

Right let's check, shall we? So, what is the line called? Vinculum, can you say that, say it again my turn then your turn, vinculum, vinculum, good.

Why do we need it? This line helps us to know that we're working with a fraction, that we've got a fraction here.

How about that number four, what would we call that? Good, the denominator and why do we need it? What does it tell us? Good it tells us the number of equal parts that there are within this whole of the shape, the quantity, or the set that we're talking about.

And how about the number one? Good, numerator.

So you've got numerator, denominator, vinculum.

What does the numerator tell us? Good, the number of equal parts highlighted that we're talking about from within that whole, that shape, that quantity, that number.

Let's use that understanding of the parts of the fraction now, and take a look at some different representations.

Having a look at this shape, can you tell me the fraction that is red? Tell me the denominator and the numerator.

Good, why is the denominator six? There are six equal parts.

Why is the numerator one? We are talking about one of those six equal parts, one sixth is red.

In this example, we've got a whole shape divided into six equal parts.

Notice what's different with the next example.

What fraction of the stars is yellow? Can you tell me the fraction that's yellow? The denominator? The numerator? Say the numerator again and the fraction that is yellow? Two fifths.

Why is the denominator five? Because the whole set, is made up of five equal parts is split into five equal parts.

How about the numerator being two? Why two? Good we're talking about two of those five equal parts within the set.

So, previously we had a shape split into six equal parts now we have a set made up of five equal parts, and we're talking about two of them.

We can talk about two fifths of the set.

We can talk about one sixth of the shape.

Notice this next one.

What number is the arrow pointing to? Tell me on three, one, two, three, one quarter.

Why is the denominator four? The space between zero and one has been divided into four equal parts.

The numerator is one, why? We are talking about one of those four equal parts.

The first, of those four equal parts in fact, one quarter is a number on the number line within the space between zero and one.

And how about this one? If the pizzas are shared equally, what fraction does each person get? Three pieces, four people, what do you think? Now in a future lesson, if you're here for more of them, we're going to look at this in detail.

For now I'm going to share with you that each person would get, three quarters of a pizza, because there are three pizzas and we are dividing by four.

In this case, three quarters is representing three divided by four and the amount of pizza that they would get each.

Three divided by four is equal to three quarters, three quarters is, three divided by four.

We're going to look at this in more detail in a future lesson, if you are here for it.

Otherwise, just know that a fraction can represent a division, as well, it can be both the division, and the quotient and the solution to the division.

I'd like you to pause now and to have a go at your task.

When you've completed it, come back and we'll look at the solutions.

So here was your task.

How did you get on? Now I wonder what you've drawn or you've recorded to show your learning here.

Could you hold up your paper with anything on that you have used for this activity, let me see.

Looking good everyone.

Fantastic.

Now I'm going to use colour to show you which of the different representations match.

So here we've got in a pink colour, all of the representations of three eighths in different ways.

The next colour, purple is representing all of the representations of three fifths.

And then in green, we've got five sixths represented in different ways, from divisions, to fractions of sets, to fractions of shapes, to numbers on a number line.

If you'd like to pause, because there's a lot of information here, isn't there? You can pause if you'd like to, if you're still checking off your own solutions.

Press pause now, if you want to do that.

Finishing up then with the ready for a challenge, this shape has been divided into four equal parts can you explain why it's true? So you've been told it's true, how would you explain that it is true? Hold up your paper if you wrote anything down for this ready for a challenge, so I can see.

First of all, who had to go? And what you've written? Here's what I've written, just compare it to yours.

Each part has an equal number of squares, 12 each of the four parts that is, and there are 48 squares in total, four twelves are 48.

The shape has been divided into four equal parts, in each equal part, there are 12 squares.

That's how I proved, explained how I know that this is true.

If you would like to share any of your learning from this fractions lesson, please ask your parents or carer to share your learning on Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Wow everyone, what a fantastic lesson.

Thank you so much for joining me in particular for your participation, for calling out, saying things to the screen, holding up your work.

That was really, really key for this lesson running as smoothly as it did, and for me enjoying it as much as I did.

And I hope that you can say the same.

I look forward to seeing you again for some more maths learning.

If you've got any other lessons lined up for the day, then I hope you enjoy those just as much.

And I look forward to seeing you again soon.

Bye for now.