Equivalent fractions
You may have already learned about fractions as areas of shapes. We can use diagrams of fractions to help us understand equivalent fractions. Equivalent fractions are fractions that have the same value, even though they might look different. Watch this video to see how.
When thinking about fractions as equal, it helps to be able to think about them as a fraction family. For example, halves, quarters and eighths go together and we can draw a diagram to help understand them.
We can see that:
$\frac{1}{2}=\frac{2}{4}$12=24
$\frac{1}{4}=\frac{2}{8}$14=28
and
$\frac{1}{2}=\frac{4}{8}$12=48
To look at equivalent fractions we can draw a diagram.
Equivalent fractions have the same value, but different denominators (bottom numbers).
Examples
QUESTION 1
Fill in the blank to find an equivalent fraction to $\frac{1}{3}$13:
$\frac{1}{3}=\frac{\editable{}}{6}$13=6
QUESTION 2
Answer the question below.
If we start with $1$1 squares out of $2$2 shaded and want to draw an equivalent fraction with $2$2 shaded squares how many total squares do we need? $\editable{}$
QUESTION 3
Fill in the blank to find an equivalent fraction to $\frac{2}{4}$24:
$\frac{2}{4}=\frac{3}{\editable{}}$24=3