MathsClass

Understanding the concept of a fraction by shading in a part of a shape is a fairly standard introductory activity.  When I did a search on Flickr for fractions, I found this set of fraction shading diagrams^*.  What I liked about these diagrams is that you are required to represent two fractions on one diagram.

Taking this idea, I’ve made a set of 18 worksheets with various shapes and instructions.

In my classes I’ve printed two per page for those that finish the main lesson early.  As there are 18 different shapes, there’s a bit of individuality around the room.

Another idea is to print 9 to a page, making it a main activity for a lower level class.

Credit for this activity:

• The idea
• Circle diagrams from math-drills.com
• Other shapes - originals

* Note: In the set of Flickr images, there are some ellipses pictured with the instruction “show fifths;” – technically the diagram in these is incorrect because each part is not of equal size.