Finding Fractions of a Set

Today in maths we revised fractions. We quickly realised that a lot of us didn't know how to find a fraction of a set! Fortunately Mrs Stone found a delicious way to teach this, somehow it provided the right motivation for us to grasp this new concept very quickly!

After completing a maths workshop and number line activity, we were rewarded with a fun fractions task.

We started by counting the number of M&Ms in our packet - most of us had 16. We then separated our M&M's into groups based on their colours. Then we worked out what fraction of the pack each colour was like this:

Next we worked out how to find a fraction of the set. We started by looking for a half and then a quarter. We started to realise that the denominator tells us how many groups the set has been broken up into altogether.

Somehow at this point, a lot of us had 15 M&Ms, so we made thirds and fifths next. Then we were able to solve problems without using the M&Ms. We were able to work out that 1/4 of 12 is 3, because we split the 12 up into 4 groups and there would be 3 M&Ms in each group.