Adding Fractions in School

Adding fractions is an everyday activity, not just for homework. But, you need to be able to get through your homework assignments to have a good understanding of the principals of fractions. First, you need to know the parts of a fraction and what they mean. Once you know what makes up a fraction, you can learn the steps for adding fractions. Finally, it's also important to know where adding fractions can be useful in real life.

The Anatomy of Fractions

When you look at a fraction, there are three basic parts. A top number, a bottom number, and that little line that separates them. That bottom number is called a denominator. The denominator is basically the total possible parts available. The top number is the numerator, it is the actual amount of parts that you have. So, when you look at a fraction like ¹/₈, 1 is the numerator and 8 is the denominator. If you have a pizza that you cut into 8 slices and you take one slice, you have 1 of the 8 slices for the whole pizza. You have a fraction of a pizza. It just so happens that you have ¹/₈ of a pizza.

Adding Fractions

The first step for adding fractions is to create like denominators. The denominators for each fraction must be the same to be able to add them properly. This can sometimes get tricky. To convert the fractions so that they have the same denominator, you can multiply the numerator and the denominator of the first fraction by the denominator of the second fraction. Then, you can multiply the numerator and denominator of the second fraction by the original denominator of the first fraction. This is sometimes called cross-multiplication. You can use online calculators to find the lowest common denominator that is used as well as the GCF Calculator. Once the two fractions are converted to have the same denominator, the numerators can be added. Example: ¹/₂ + ¹/₄ would need to use cross multiplication to convert the fractions so they have the same denominator. ¹/₂ becomes ⁴/₈ and ¹/₄ becomes ²/₈. Now your equation looks like: ⁴/₈+ ²/₈. The you now can add the numerators and the resulting answer is ⁶/₈. This can be simplified to ³/₄.

Adding Fractions in Your Daily Life

There are a lot of ways that you add fractions in real life. Many sales at department stores have a fraction. If you work construction or are working on DIY products around the house, you may need to add different lengths and many of these lengths will be fractions of an inch. There are other ways you can use your adding fractions skills in real life, for more examples, try this blog post about adding fractions in your daily life.

Adding Fractions Calculator

For more help with your skills at adding fractions, CalcuNation Online Calculators has an Adding Fractions Calculator to help you check your answers. There are other fractions calculator that can be found on that site as well.