Explore How to Decompose a Fraction

Learning to decompose fractions is important for students because it helps them understand how fractions work and how they relate to each other. It’s like knowing how to take apart and put together pieces of a puzzle. This fundamental knowledge of how fractions work will be beneficial to students as they advance to more challenging concepts such as adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions.

To help your students learn this crucial skill, the Teach Starter team has created this fun matching game perfect for 4th graders! The matching game contains 18 fraction circle cards and 18 number sentence cards. Students are required to make matches by pairing a fraction circle with its corresponding number sentence. For example, a fraction circle that has been cut into eighths with two-eighths coloured in would match with the number sentence ⅛ +⅛.

This resource downloads as a full-colour PDF or editable Google Slides file. It includes:

• Instruction page
• Matching cards
• Answer key

We recommend printing the cards on cardboard to increase the durability of the resource. Place the cards together in a large envelope or ziplock bag for safekeeping. All you need to do is pull out the resource and that’s your fractions lesson taken care of!

Variations on This Decomposing Fractions Game

Looking for some ideas to adapt this resource when decomposing fractions with your students? Here are a few suggestions from our teacher team:

1. Find Your Pair – Provide each student with a card from the pack. Have your students walk around the room to find the student who has the card that matches theirs. As an extra challenge, see if students can complete the task in silence! 
2. Card Games – For those students who want to add an extra element to the matching activity, have them incorporate well-known games such as “Snap!”, “Memory” or “Go Fish” into the task. 
3. Draw The Match – Show students a card from the pack. On mini-whiteboards, have the students draw either the fraction circle or the number sentence that matches the card shown. Have students award themselves a point for each correct response.

Download, Print and Play This Decomposing Fractions Game

Use the Download button above to access the easy-print PDF of the editable Google Slides version of this decomposing fractions matching game. (Note: You will be prompted to make a copy of the Google Slides template on your personal drive before accessing it.)

As this resource contains an answer sheet, you may wish to print only one copy and remove the answer sheet before making further copies.

This resource was created by Cassandra Friesen, a Teach Starter collaborator.

More Fractions Activities for Years 3 and 4

Are you looking for more engaging fractions resources to use with your Years 3 and 4 students? Click below for more activities to complement your teaching!

teaching resource

Introduction to Fractions – Interactive Teaching Presentation

Use this teaching presentation to teach your students how to identify the parts of a fraction, determine equal and unequal parts and use numerators and denominators to write fractions.

teaching resource

Ways to Represent a Unit Fraction Worksheet

Help students show their knowledge of how to represent different unit fractions with this set of unit fractions worksheets.

teaching resource

Fraction Strips

Print a set of fraction strips for the classroom! Keep the handy maths manipulative on hand for fraction games, showing equivalent fractions and more!