Fractions: Adding and Subtracting

Teach Your Kid at Home: Fractions

Teach Your Kid at Home: Fractions includes simplifying, adding, subtracting, unlike denominators, mixed numbers, multiplying and dividing.

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  1. What is a Fraction?

A fraction is just something that has been cut up into equal parts. Imagine if you have a candy bar and you cut it up into 4 equal pieces—if you want to share that candy bar with three people, you would be giving away 3/4 (three-fourths) of it.

2. Adding Fractions with Like Denominators

If you gave 1/4 away to one friend today and then 2/4 away to two other friends tomorrow—you would have given away three-fourths (3/4) of your candy bar.

This brings us to a fundamental concept when it comes to fractions, if the denominators are the same, you can simply add the numerators in an addition problem.

This applies no matter what the denominator is:

3. Subtraction with Like Denominators

The same thing is true with subtraction: when the denominators are the same simply subtract the numerators.

This again, applies to whatever the denominators are:

Adding and subtracting fractions with like denominators is straightforward.