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Parts and Wholes Activities for Kindergarten

Teaching students about fractions can be a hard task because of the difficult concept of explaining how different parts make up a whole. The best way to handle teaching young students about fractions is to give them a physical visual which they can reproduce and see different portions of a whole. Use graphs and diagrams, picture cut-outs and piles of small objects that can be broken into parts to help children learn fractions.
  1. Graphs

    • Using drawings and graphs is an easy way to introduce kindergartners to the concept of fractions. On a chalk or white-board, draw a series of circles and color in different sections of each to indicate different fractions. Begin with the easy fractions, such as 1/2 and 1/4, and work up to more difficult ones, such as 1/8 and 1/16. Be sure to explain to students that the important thing to do is to divide a circle into equal parts based on the bottom number of the fraction and use the graphs to demonstrate the different parts. Have students draw in different fractions on paper circles of their own.

    Coloring Pictures

    • Have students color pages using different fractions.

      A good game for children to play involving fractions and coloring is to have them take a coloring page and color different amounts of a picture in a certain color. The teacher can, for example, tell a student to color 1/2 of a character's pair of pants blue and the other 1/2 red. This will test a student's knowledge of fractions while giving him something fun to do in the process.

    Cut-outs of Circles and Shapes

    • Use cut-outs of shapes and puzzle-like games to help students learn fractions.

      Teachers can cut several colorful shapes into a variety of sizes and have students reassemble the pieces to create a shape. Have the students take all of the red pieces and reassemble a square. Tell the students to remove 1/2 of the square and reward students that take the right number of pieces away with points or stickers. Games like these will be fun for students because they see immediate results and immediate rewards for learning.

    Piles of Beans and Candy

    • Use piles of beans or candies to help students learn fractions.

      Using dried beans or candy, such as M&Ms or Skittles, create a pile on each student's desk. Tell the student to make a square out of the small objects that has the same number of items in each row. This will be simplest if the teacher knows how many of each item to put in each row and to pick a number, like eight or 10, that is even and easily divisible. Have the students remove fractions of the items. At the end of the game, let the students eat their piles if they are edible items.

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