Use Pictures to Find 1/4 of a Number

In this activity, we will be looking at how to find a quarter 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 quarter 12. 

 

Things to remember:

- A quarter written as a fraction is 1/4

- Numerator is the name of the first number (the top one) in a fraction, which for 1/4 is 1

- Denominator is the name of the second number (the bottom one)  in a fraction, which for 1/4 is 4

 

 

Example 1 

Find 1/4 of 12. 

Here we have 12 stars:

 

  

 

To find 1/4 we need to look at the denominator of the fraction which is 4. 

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

 

  

 

Here, we have four equal groups of stars - there are three in each group. 

So 1/4 of 12 is three. 

 

Example 2 

Find 1/4 of 12. 

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

The denominator in 1/4 is 4, so this means we need to share 12 between four groups. 

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

Share the dots counting them out like this:

 

  

 

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

 

There are three dots in each group. 

 

 

This also shows us that 1/4 of 12 is three. 

 

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