How do you shade figures to represent a fraction? How long do you think it will take to read this lesson? Maybe a quarter of an hour? Well, how long is that? You probably know that a quarter of an hour is fifteen minutes, but you may not have realized that you just used a fraction to figure that out. If there are 60 minutes in an hour, 1/4 of 60 minutes is 15 minutes. No matter what you are doing, you never have to look too far to find a fraction, so it is important to understand what they are and how to represent them. A fraction is a mathematical way to represent a part of a whole. The number on the bottom is known as the denominator, tells you how many parts there are total, and the number on the top (the numerator) tells you how many parts you actually have. It's often easiest to understand fractions by seeing them as parts of a whole object or group of objects, rather than simply as abstract numbers. There are several visual models that you can use to better understand them. One of the ways to represent fractions effectively is through the use of shading. The part that is consumed or is being used can be shaded and the rest is left white or untouched. This is helpful regardless if it is done in full color or black and white.

These worksheets will show students how to progressively reduce fraction with the help of uneven visual fraction shapes. Students will look at the sections of the entire shape as the denominator and the shaded sections as the numerator. We try to stimulate a higher level of thought by not offering balanced shapes. In most cases there is an odd ball section hanging out of a basic shape. This will require the student to actually count the sections by hand. These worksheets explain how to describe the area of a shape by using a multiplication sentence. Numerators or denominators may be supplied as a prompt.