Source: mathmammoth.com

Use and Importance of Fractions in Everyday Life

When you heard about fractions the first thing that came into our mind is mathematics, but it is an extremely important concept that we used in our day-to-day life, right from reading a clock to baking a cake. The learning of fractions forms the basis for understanding various math topics and is an essential life skill. Kids must gain an in-depth understanding of this topic to work comfortably with them. The concept of fractions usually feels confusing for kids due to its complexity. With educational resources like math puzzles and games, fractions can be made fun for kids. It also enables kids to visualize fractions in real life to understand their applications. Solving fraction puzzles also help in promoting a child’s interest in math by making it exciting and fun for them. You can also explain fractions to your kids by telling them some interesting stories which include puzzles related to fractions.

Even you can plan fun activities for kids through which you can explain fractions. These activities may include games, riddles, and many more. The kids will learn something and also they will enjoy the activities. When it comes to kids it is really important that they enjoy the activities. When they get bored, they will just ignore the main concept and their minds will get diverted. Whenever you will explain fractions make sure that you make them enjoy it otherwise, they will treat it as a boring mathematics concept. Here, we will discuss one interesting card game just like UNO which will help kids to understand fractions. You can create cards where you can write fractions on each card. Those who will collect the whole number at first will win the game. It will become more clear through example, let say A and B are playing A has two cards named half and ¼ and B has two cards named ¼, ¼, now A need one more ¼ card to win the game and B need one-half card to win the game. As the kids will calculate the numbers they will understand the fractions.

Source: pinterest.com

Let’s start with understanding the true meaning of the term fraction and its importance in our day-to-day life.

What is the meaning of the term fraction?

Part of a whole is called a fraction. In simple words, each whole number has two parts and a fraction represents that whole number. The number which is on upper side of the fraction is called a numerator. It represents the small part of the whole or collection that we considered. Let us understand it through a simple example when it comes to the distribution of pizza we divide it into five equal slices, every divided slice represents a fractional value of 1/5, and the remaining pizza represents 4/5.

Importance of the method Fraction in our everyday life

Learning fractions concepts enables children to gain confidence while working with fractions daily. Children who are advanced in their fraction skills can quickly figure out solutions to various complicated situations with ease, like managing their time and schedules, estimating the right proportion of ingredients to bake cookies, and so on. There are many ways you can help your child see and learn the importance of method fractions in their everyday life. Let’s discuss some real-life examples in an active way that will help them learn fractions.

Use of Fractions in our day to day life

Source: today.com

Distributing food

Distributing food is a great real-life example that anyone can use to develop a child’s understanding of fractions. Dividing things among groups is a very simple application of fractions that will enable kids to grasp this concept easily. For example, you can explain to them when they divide cake slices equally amongst their friends it also requires fractions.

Dividing Bills

Dividing a single bill amount among a group of two or more people is one of the easy and helpful activities to teach fractions. For example, To divide the total amount of a restaurant bill among three or four friends, to do it properly they will require fractions.

Buying goods

When we go shopping, to calculate discounts and prices of various products, we have to deal with fractions. For example, when we saw the tag line of 50% off on a bag’s price the first thing we do was calculating the discount amount and here you will require fractions.

Cooking & Baking

Trying and following various recipes during cooking is also helpful in learning fractions. Following various recipes also require an understanding of fractions. For example, to estimate one and half a teaspoon of cocoa powder, ¼ quarter a tablespoon of sugar, etc. They are also useful when it comes to serving ingredients to people according to the present number of people.

Source: familyfecs.com

Health and Fitness

Sports comes first when it comes to health and fitness. They are a great means to introduce fractions to your kids. Let’s understand it through a simple example, a football game has four equal quarters, and after two quarters, it’s a half time. We can use fractions if we want to analyze the performance of a particular/selected player or the entire team.

Tests and Assessments

Scores of any tests or exams are expressed in terms of fractions. For example, if the marks obtained by a student are 15 out of 20, it is represented in fractional form, i.e., 15/20.

Telling Time

Reading time is also a way of teaching fractions to kids. They can learn to represent half an hour, quarter past, and quarter with the fractions.

Conclusion

Fractions form the understanding of various math facts and topics. Visualizing fractions in daily life is highly beneficial for kids to learn its applications. The use of educational resources like puzzles, games, and worksheets enables kids to learn fractions better. Cuemath offers plenty of interactive resources for kids to learn and understand math in an interesting way. To find some interesting ways to teach fractions check the website.

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