Dr. Beth McCulloch Vinson Athens State University PT3 Grant Funding, Summer 2000

This is “one whole” square. If we divide it in half we have two pieces. Each piece is “one-half” of the whole.

We write “one whole” like this: 1.0 We write the fraction “one-half” like this: 1 2

Everything on the left-hand side of a number refers to a whole number. So when we write “1.0” we mean “one whole” and “no parts.” 1.0 whole parts of a whole

Everything on the right-hand side of a number refers to parts of a whole. So when we write the fraction “one-half” as a decimal number it looks like this: 0.5

is the decimal equivalent of the fraction 1 2

0.5 means that there are 0 whole numbers and there are 5 parts of a whole number. 0.5 whole parts of a whole 0.5

Looking at the box above you can see that = 1 or half + half = whole

Let’s do fourths now.

This is “one whole” square. 1.0 This is that same whole square divided into “fourths”

Fourths are also called quarters. There are 4 quarters in 1 dollar. There are also 4 quarters (fourths) in 1 whole

That makes it easy to know the decimal equivalent of fourths. It is: 0.25

A Project Developed for Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) By Dr. Beth McCulloch Vinson Athens State University, School of Education