The following concepts are important to help your child understand fractions.

• Equal parts: A fraction represents parts of a whole, and those parts must be equal in size
• The number of parts: Fractions describe how many parts the whole is divided into. For example: eighths represent 8 equal parts of a whole
• Larger number of parts mean smaller parts: The more parts a whole is divided into, the smaller that each part is
• The size of the whole: The size of each fraction depends on the size of the whole
• Equivalence: Different representations of the same value. For example, a whole cake can be cut into halves or quarters or thirds.

By practising these activities at home, you can help your child strengthen their ability to work with fractions.

• Cooking and baking: Involve your child in preparing meals, baking or sharing snacks. Use measuring cups and spoons to demonstrate fractions. For example, if a recipe calls for 1/3 cup of flour, discuss how that is one third of a whole cup.
• Grocery shopping: Discuss prices and quantities while shopping. If you are buying 1/4 kilo of tomatoes, talk about how that represents a one quarter of a kilo of tomatoes. If an item is on sale for half price, talk about how that represents a fraction of the full price.
• Understanding time: Discuss the time in terms of fractions. For example, if it is half past 1, what fraction of an hour is left until 2?
• Read books: Read books about fractions together. They can provide examples to help your child understand the concept.

The following concepts are important to help your child understand multiplicative thinking.

• Equal groups or ‘groups of’ are collections that increase or decrease by the same amount. Children need to understand both the number of groups and the number of items in each group.
• An array is a way of arranging objects, like counters, into equal rows and columns. An array helps us to organise a collection in a structured way and see different number patterns, like doubling. It also helps us to understand composite units.
• A region model is similar to an array but without using objects. It is a rectangular grid that can be made bigger by adding more rows or columns. Region models can help children extend their known strategies.
• The area model builds on the region model and arrays, and it supports children to multiply larger numbers, decimals and fractions. It helps children to visualise the formal algorithm, a method to solve the mathematical problem.
• Developing mental strategies for multiplication and division facts up to 10 x 10 helps children recall information automatically and can build confidence. Examples include:
  • using the ’double doubles’ strategy for facts relating to multiples of 4
  • using the ‘relate to tens’ strategy for facts relating to multiples of 5 and multiples of 9.
• Inverse relationships are the opposite of each other. For example, multiplication and division are inverse operations. Understanding this inverse relationship can help children solve problems more efficiently.
• The distributive property is a way to simplify multiplication problems by breaking numbers apart. or example, multiplying 13 by 4, 13 is the same as 10 and 3. This means you can multiply the 10 and 3 by 4 separately and add the answers together.

By practising these activities at home, you can help your child strengthen their multiplicative skills.

• Gardening: Planting and caring for a garden can involve multiplying quantities of seeds or plants. Children can work out how many plants will fit in a certain area or how many seeds to plant per hole.
• Share equally: Encourage children to share equally among siblings or friends. For example, if they have a certain number of cards and need to distribute them equally, they can practise division.
• Shopping calculations: When shopping, encourage children to calculate the total cost of a group of items, such as fruit or vegetables.