What are fractions?

Fractions are pieces of a whole, just like slices of pizza or cookies you share with friends.

Imagine you have one big chocolate bar, and you want to split it with your friend. You break it into two equal parts, now each part is a fraction of the whole chocolate bar. Each piece is 1 out of 2 parts, so we call it 1/2, or one-half.

When you share something, like a pizza or a cake, and you cut it into equal pieces, each piece becomes a fraction. If there are four slices, each one is 1 out of 4 parts, which we write as 1/4, one-fourth.

You can also have more than one part. If you take two slices from that pizza with four pieces, you now have 2 out of 4 parts, or 2/4. That's the same as half the pizza!

Fractions help us describe how much we have when we share, and they’re super useful in real life, like dividing toys, candies, or even time.