Fractions and the Kinetic Learner

Little Miss Sunshine was really struggling with fractions today. Now I don't know about you but Numerator's and Denominator's always, always, always confused me as a child. Which was which??? Now Singapore isn't even discussing the technical terms yet... it's just talking about parts of a whole.  But I could see LMS getting mixed up as to which part went on top and which part went on the bottom. She's my box girl, she loves to categorize and stick things in the cubby holes of her brain.  So I thought I'd give naming the top and bottom parts with the correct names, a try.   

After a session with circles of paper, scissors, and  Dividing whole pizzas into parts.  I kept using a mnemonic " The Denominator is how many parts the whole pizza is Divided into." Then we named the top and bottom,  I got out the chair and we played being the numerator or the Denominator. Note the use of Down with Denominator. She had a blast, she liked it so much she let me record her.  

This is what the game looks like... later we'll be a fraction.  To be a quarter she will jump up on top and say I'm  one part of four, then jump down and say "Down here I have four parts"  and like wise with other fractions. Doing this with motion really seems to make it stick with my kids.   I also used this Technique with Sweet Potato and she got Numerators and Denominators in one session. 

Little Miss Sunshine says  "I jump Down and I'm the Denominator."  :-)