Use Pictures to Help Find Half of Numbers

In this activity, we will be looking at how to find half of a number. 

 

We can use pictures and we can draw our own pictures to help us to work these out. 

So, let's have a look at the different ways we can halve 12. 

 

Things to remember:

- Half written as a fraction is 1/2

- Numerator is the name of the first number (the top one) in a fraction, which for 1/2 is 1

- Denominator is the name of the second number (the bottom one) in a fraction, which for 1/2 is 2

 

 

Example 1 

Find 1/2 of 12. 

Here we have 12 stars:

 

  

 

To find 1/2 we need to look at the denominator of the fraction which is 2. 

This means we need to split the stars into two equal groups. 

 

  

 

Here, we have two equal groups of stars, there are six in each group. 

So 1/2 of 12 is six. 

 

Example 2 

Find 1/2 of 12. 

Another way to find half is to draw a picture to help us. 

The denominator in 1/2 is 2, so this means we need to share 12 between two groups. 

We can draw a circle and split it into two parts, then we can share 12 dots between the two groups. 

Share the dots counting them out like this:

 

 

Keep sharing the dots between the two groups until all 12 have been shared:

 

There are six dots in each group. 

 

 

This also shows us that 1/2 of 12 is six. 

 

Let's use these methods to help us solve these questions.