Depth 1 · 35 s
Equal parts
In 3/4, the bottom number says the whole is cut into 4 equal parts and the top that you have 3 of them. The parts must be equal, fractions have places on the number line, and 3/4 is 3 ÷ 4.
About this video
A fraction names part of a whole that has been cut into equal parts. This short animation reads the fraction 3/4 from the bottom up. The bottom number, 4, says the whole is cut into four equal parts, called quarters. The top number, 3, says how many of those parts you have. Shade three of the four parts of a bar and you can see three quarters.
The word that matters is equal. A bar cut into four pieces of different sizes isn't cut into quarters at all, even though there are four pieces. Fractions are numbers too, so they have their own places on the number line: cut the step from 0 to 1 into four equal parts, and 3/4 sits at the third mark. Some fractions are more than one whole, like 5/4, which sits past 1. And every fraction is a division: 3/4 is 3 ÷ 4, three bars shared fairly among four people. This video goes with the Equal Parts and Between the Whole Numbers lessons of Numbers Level 1 on Knaph.
This video shows depth 1 of Fractions.
Learn FractionsTranscript
- 0:00What does three quarters mean?
- 0:04The bottom number says the whole is cut into four equal parts.
- 0:10The top number says you have three of them.
- 0:15If the parts aren't equal, they aren't quarters.
- 0:20Fractions have places on the number line, and some are more than one.
- 0:26And three quarters is three divided by four.
- 0:30A fraction is equal parts of a whole.