Age: 8
I’m going through the Fraction part of my Montessori math album for the 4th time to teach Gnome. Finally, after 4 years, I’ve finished creating my Montessori Fraction Charts in both English and Traditional Chinese and cleaned up all the other Montessori fractions materials I made.
We’re in Taiwan right now and this week we printed out the Montessori Fraction cutouts for Gnome to do her Montessori Fraction Equivalence Research. These cut outs are one of the most used Montessori material I’ve made. In a pinch, I use them instead of my metal insets.
When do you use the Montessori Fraction Cut Outs?
In my album, all of my fraction presentations are done with the Fraction Metal Insets. But! You have a classroom of 30-40 children and only one inset! How does that work?!
I think this is why you need the Fraction Cut-outs. They’re easier to handle, just one box to bring down from the shelves. You could buy multiple boxes if you need to.
You may notice that nowadays they sell fraction cut-outs from 1/11 to 1/20. I remember asking my trainer if I needed this and she unequivocally shook her head. The circles are there to help them in the beginning to explore fractions. But by the time they get to the 1/11 to 1/20 fraction operations, they should be able to do it in their head.
I decided to make my own because I was trying to be cheap. But I have to say that there is something about the heavy heft of a wooden cut out that may be really helpful to young children, which we missed by making laminated paper ones.
Just think about the fact that holding a 1/2 fraction wooden piece is heavier than a 1/10 fraction wooden piece. It makes a sensorial difference.
Materials Needed
- Storage Box with Dividers
- Montessori Fraction Cutouts
- Laminating Machine
- Laminating Pouches – 5mm or 3mm
- 90lb Cardstock Paper
It took me SO FREAKING LONG to find the right storage box. I almost gave up and just bought the real cut outs. So I hope I saved you some trouble on that front.
I would suggest you print 3 copies of the first 2 pages and 2 copies of the last page of the Fraction Cutouts. You really need 3 sets of half fractions to do some fraction operation work.
The fraction cut outs are also better with 5mm pouches (aff link). It made the paper much stiffer and allows for more rough handling.
You can check out this post on how we used the box to learn fraction multiplication.