Teacher notes

• While students eventually need to learn the vocabulary for the parts of a fraction, understanding the meaning of the terms ‘numerator’ and ‘denominator’ should be the focus at this level.
• Students need to experience different models of fractions. ‘Continuous’ representations are those where a shape or line is measured and divided into equal pieces. Students should encounter a range of shapes, equally partitioned in different ways. Encourage students to think of as many ways as they can to partition different shapes, including those they might encounter in real life, for example, finding a fraction of a hexagon or triangle rather than a circle or square, halving an apple or banana with a horizontal rather than vertical cut, partitioning a square into quarters vertically and then halving each quarter horizontally to form eighths.
  It is also important that students have opportunities to explore fractions of length, such as a piece of string or length of ribbon.
• Students may not be familiar with ‘working backwards’ to find the whole from a fraction of a shape, which they are asked to do in the practical ‘The whole thing’ on page 166 of the Student Resource Book. Students who have difficulty understanding this concept may need some support. You could remind them that the way a fraction is written will indicate the number of parts in a whole or you could give students a mirror to help them identify what the whole might look like. This might also help students recreate the whole in more than one way.
• It is important to introduce the fraction wall model to students before they use it, so that they understand how the wall can be helpful for comparing the size of fractions and their relationship to the whole. You could use Fraction wall (Teacher Resource Sheet 29) which displays a fraction wall as a partner share and class discussion prior to beginning Activity 2 on page 167 of the Student Resource Book.