Garden Fractions

A bed divided into quarters. A harvest split between four classes. Half the seeds planted, half kept.

Fractions live badly on paper and well in soil. A quarter of a bed is a thing you can stand in.

The sheet runs six problems, all of them physically doable on a normal school site, and asks the child to do the thing before writing the answer.

The page has the six problems, working space, and a challenge involving thirds, which is much harder to divide by eye than quarters and produces useful frustration. We let them struggle with the thirds. The strategy they invent for it, usually folding a paper strip, is a better lesson than the answer.