Fraction Circle Fun

This is a great way to give kids experience with fraction pieces and end up with an adorable piece of art.  The idea for the fraction circle pictures comes from the book Picture Pie by Ed Emberley. The book has so many ideas of birds, animals, insects and plants that can be made from fractional pie pieces.

First decide what fractions you want your students to use.  Halves, fourths and eighths can be made from plain circles.  You can show students how to fold and cut the circles to get those fractions. 

If you want them to use thirds, and sixths it is much easier to start with preprinted circles. 

Click on the fraction circles for a pdf file that you can print for your class to use on this or other projects.

The students in Mrs. Q's class used white circles and then colored them for their completed pictures.  But I've done this in the past with circles printed on colored construction paper.

When the pictures are finished you can have them write statements about how many fractions they used for their picture. 

For example, for this picture the student  could write:

sun = 1 + 8/8 = 2 circles

flower = 1/2 + 2/4 = 1 circle

leaves = 2/8

Here's another example:

sun = 1/4

butterfly = 4/8

flower = 4/8

cardinal = 1/2 + 2/4 + 1/8

The kids had a lot of fun and gained some great experience with fractions.  
Thank you to Mrs. Q's second graders for letting me use their fraction art.  They are a very talented group of boys and girls.