Fractions and Parts of a Whole Resources

Once your student understands the basics of whole numbers, they’ll realize that they’ll be dealing with other types of numbers in advanced mathematical concepts. Fractions are often the most intimidating when students first see them and can help with overall number sense. When you take a whole object and divide it into parts, groups of those parts can be represented as a whole.
There are two parts to any fraction: the numerator and the denominator. Most of the time, these fractions are written vertically, with the numerator written above the denominator, separated by a horizontal line, known as the Vinculum:
Numerator Denominator
They can also be written horizontally, the numerator preceding the denominator, separated by a forward leaning slash:
Numerator/Denominator
Using the resources provided by Education.com can help your students get comfortable with this format.
When reading a fraction, the numerator represents the quantity of pieces of the whole and, as such, is read as a number. The denominator represents the name of the pieces. This name is decided based on number of pieces the whole has been broken into. One of two pieces is called a half. Any number of pieces beyond two and the piece name is the same as that number’s sequential name.
When teaching this concept to your students, it helps to use an object that most people are familiar with: a pizza. Divide the pizza into 4 pieces. At this point, explain to them that when you have all of the pieces, it represents the whole object, e.g. 4/4 pieces of pizza represent 1 whole pizza.