Fractions, Decimals & Percentages
This collection of resources supports the teaching of fractions,decimals and percentages in secondary mathematics.
Here are some favourite activities selected by the NRICH team.
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Peaches Today, Peaches Tomorrow Whenever a monkey has peaches, he always keeps a fraction of them each day, gives the rest away, and then eats one. How long could he make his peaches last for?
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Fair Shares? A mother wants to share a sum of money by giving each of her children in turn a lump sum plus a fraction of the remainder. How can she do this in order to share the money out equally?
- Ben’s Game Ben passed a third of his counters to Jack, Jack passed a quarter of his counters to Emma and Emma passed a fifth of her counters to Ben. After this they all had the same number of counters.
These are just a few of the activities on Fractions, decimals & percentages that you can find on the NRICH curriculum pages.
The activities below, taken from the STEM Learning website, complement the NRICH activities above.
Fraction Games for Students Aged 11-13
This resource contains a selection of games published by BEAM for students to develop their understanding of fractions, decimals and percentages.
Three in a row - strategy game using division with decimals.
Halves and quarters - divsion by 2 and 4 giving decimal numbers.
Line up - adding three decimal numbers to make 10.
Maze - addition and subtraction to make a number less than 1.
More than half - sorting fractions produced by rolling dice.
Secret targets - addition of decimals.
Who's closer? - decimal strategy game.
Decimals
The following are relevant SMILE resources from Decimals pack two.
Fractions to Decimals Match (pdf page 2) is a card sort where students match fractions to their decimals form which enables them to order the fractions.
Target 100 (pdf page 4) is a game for two players involving multiplication and division of decimals in order to approach close to a target of 100.
Decimal Flags (pdf page 6) is a worksheet where students investigate multiplication and division by decimals. It leads to an appreciation of reciprocals in decimal form.
Quarto (pdf page 8) is a game for two players involving multiplication and division of decimals where each score is shown on a number line.
Ordering Fractions and Decimals N1
This resource has sets of cards showing fractions, decimals, areas and appropriate scales marked in tenths and hundredths. The task is for students to pair up the different sets of cards and explain their reasoning. The final two sets of cards can be used to assist students who may be having difficulties.
Arithmetic: Decimals, Fractions and Percentages
The Activities file in this MEP resource contains two relevant activities.
Activity 17.1 is a worksheet where students need to find percentages of amounts in order to proceed through a maze.
Activity 17.4 (pdf page 5 onwards) has sets of cards of fractions and decimals and their equivalent percentage form. These may be used as a card sort or for ordering a mixture of fractions, decimals and percentages. Ideas for their use may be found on page 5 of the pdf.
Fractions, Decimals and Percentages Make Sense
Fractions, Decimals and Percentages 1 contains a set of SMILE resources and answers.
In particular (pdf page 24) has a worksheet called Decimal Search where students need to find various sets of numbers which total ten. The solution is shown on pdf page 34.
Fractions, Decimals and Percentages 2 contains a set of SMILE resources and answers.
Fraction Squares (pdf pages 21-22) shows unit squares cut into regions by straight lines. Students need to express the area of each region as a fraction of the unit square. Answers are shown on pdf page 50.
Early Egyptian Fractions (pdf page 42) requires students to convert various fractions into and from unit fractions. Answers are shown on pdf page 55.