This free math video offers more practice in using two different ways to subtract a fraction from a mixed number. Those familiar with mental math strategies will find this very easy to pick up as it uses the same type of process. There is no need to make the mixed number into an improper fraction! That just makes more work! Leave it as a mixed number and work with the two parts separately. So much easier!
Tag Archives: fractions
Fractions and Missing Factors
The lesson in this free math video was a little, um…rough. In hindsight, I see that I should have done several problems in a row with a numerator of one so she could get used to that idea before throwing in larger numerators. It all turned out well in the end, though, and learning to sit comfortably with confusion for a while is an important skill, in my opinion.
This type of lesson may be best done when the logic part of a child’s brain is more mature. It’s quite an abstract concept. There is no way she would have understood this without the Cuisenaire Rods as a visual.
Try this type of problem if you’re looking for a brain stretching exercise for your elementary school aged child!
Adding and Subtracting Fractions with Different Denominators
This free math video was kind of an experiment to see if my 8-year-old could assimilate all the information she’d learned thus far about fractions into adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators. I DO NOT want to give her rules until she has internalized the concepts, and, actually, I would prefer that she come up with the rules on her own when at all possible. That is why you will not see me straight up telling her what steps to take. I ask her what she thinks she should do, I give her a hint or the first step, but I try hard not to jump ahead to a “formula” too quickly. Understanding math concepts means understanding for life. Memorizing algorithms means forgetting in 10 or 20 or 30 years and feeling dumb. I’d prefer my children to actually understand this stuff!
Adding and subtracting fractions with Cuisenaire Rods looks exactly the same as adding whole numbers with the rods. The difference is in what rod you are calling “one.” Knowing how to add, subtract, multiply and divide whole numbers with the Cuisenaire rods makes it easy for her to do the same with fractions.