Fraction Story Problems Worksheets
Story problems that involve the use of fractions often give students a great deal of difficulty. This is because it is often the students first time where math and language arts meet and cross over on one another. We encourage teachers to do a great deal of walk throughs with their students. It is important to help students identify the parts (numerators) and wholes (denominators). I will often just review story problems with students that involve fractions and not even have them fully solve them. I will go through countless problems and just have them identify the part and the whole of what they problems are asking for. Once they get the hang of it, story problems are a cinch for them. These worksheets help students read through story problems and identify when a fraction needs to be used to find a solution and what operations would be required.
Aligned Standard: Grade 3 Fractions - 3.NF.3
- Apple Fraction Step-by-step Lesson- How many apples are on the floor versus on the table.
- Guided Lesson - We give you pictures to back up the word problems to help solve them.
- Guided Lesson Explanation - The first one is a bit lengthy, just to make my point. The others are spread out.
- Practice Worksheet - These are simple problems, just to make sure that they read it all the way through.
- Matching Worksheet - A really nice mix of problems for you to ponder.
- Answer Keys - These are for all the unlocked materials above.
Homework Sheets
Everything here is in the form of a word problem.
- Homework 1- April was carrying 12 socks to the dryer. On the way to the dryer, she dropped 4 socks. What fraction of the socks does she still have?
- Homework 2- Josh had 9 cookies. He gave 3 cookies to his friend Michael. What fraction of the cookies does Josh have left?
Practice Worksheets
I tried to make these problems really connect with kids. A baseball game and an animal shelter were a good start.
- Practice 1- Coach Henry was reviewing some of his baseball team's statistics from the past season. Help coach answer the questions below.
- Practice 2- The animal shelter had to report the number of animals it was housing to the State Animal Federation. Help them answer the questions below.
Math Skill Quizzes
We get back to the word problems for this order.
- Quiz 1- George had 6 bars of soap. He always took a bath with 2 bars of soap. What fraction of the soap was dry after George took a bath?
- Quiz 2- The airport was a very busy place this time of year. At the snack shack 3 people ordered coffee, 5 people ordered tea, and 7 people ordered water. What fraction of the people ordered tea?
How to Recognize a Fraction in Math Story Problems
Story problems usually center around real-life situation where math can be applied to help us better understand something. In the early stages, it is difficult for the students to differentiate between story problems that involve fractions and the ones that don't. Certain signs and terminologies can help you identify which math story problems have fractions in them. There are a few steps that you need to take to make sure you can properly identify fractions in story problems.
Step 1: Make sure you read the problem carefully. We encourage you to circle any terms that may indicate a mathematical operation.
Step 2: Try to understand what the problem is attempting to look for.
Step 3: Think about the information you need to solve this problem and the steps you would take to do so. Identify any parts and any whole value. The part values will be the numerator and the whole value will be the denominator.
Step 4: Simplify the problem into a much more understandable manner. We encourage you to draw a little picture or diagram that displays what is going on. Apply unit or values to your diagram.
Step 5: Once you identify the data, understand how they relate to one another. Outline all of the steps that you will take to solve the problem.
Step 6: Execute all the calculations that you have outlined and determine the solution.
Let's try implementing these steps in a very basic example problem:
There are 13 pieces of fruits in a basket, and out of those 13, 5 are apples. How can you represent that in a mathematical form?
The total number of fruits will be the denominator and the portion signified goes in the numerator, i.e., 5/13
This type of fraction is called an irreducible fraction, which means that the problem cannot be solved any further.
How to Solve a Fraction Math Story Problem
Problem:The restaurant was super busy today. The waitress did her rounds and took the follow drink orders for each person from several tables: 4 coffees, 6 teas, 2 waters, 8 orange juices. What fraction of the people ordered tea?
Solution: We first identify what the problem is asking us for. It is looking for the fraction of the people that ordered tea. In any fraction you have two parts the numerator (number of parts) over the denominator (total number). It would appear as:
numeratordenominator
To apply this to our problem the number of tea orders would be the part (numerator) and the total number of drinks that were ordered would be the denominator. There were 6 tea orders. The total number of drink orders is equal to 4 + 6 + 2 + 8 = 20. There were 20 drink orders. To represent this as a fraction:
6
20