First we had the whole pizza with toppings on all of it.
Second we "cut" our pizza in half. We discovered that the fraction of pizza that had toppings was...
1
---
2
However, that was only enough pizza for two people! So we had to divide those pieces in half to see how many we would have then.
Now we have 4 equal pieces, but what fraction of the pizza still has toppings? The students very quickly figured out...
2 1
--- = ---
4 2
We had enough pizza for four people and figured out that half of those 4 would have topping and the other half would have just cheese. We knew this because we learned that two-fourths is the same as one-half. However that was still not enough pizza for the whole class, so back to "cutting" our pizza we went.....
Yippee we now have eight pieces of pizza and the fraction of pieces that have toppings are...
4 1
--- = ---
8 2
Out of our eight pieces of pizza, 4 people can have topping and 4 people can have cheese. The students figured out faster than I could ask that still meant that one-half of the people would have topping on their pizza and one-half would only have cheese. So, four-eighths is equal to one-half! However, you guessed it, we still don't have enough for the WHOLE class!!! One last time we went to "cutting" our pizza, and.....
We have 16 pieces of pizza! There are 8 that have toppings and 8 that have only cheese. That meant that half of the students could have toppings and half could have only cheese. So our fraction of pieces that have toppings is:
8 1
--- = ---
16 2
Finally, we have enough pieces of pizza for everyone in our class. We had one more problem to figure out. We ended up with two extra pieces of pizza, because we only needed 14 for our whole class! The students decided to share with Miss Mackie and Miss Boyd!
Don't forget to start talking with your child about where else they might see fractions in their daily lives.
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