Parts of a whole

A fraction is just a way to talk about part of a whole. Cut something into equal pieces, take some of them — that's a fraction.

Top and bottom

Every fraction has two numbers:

• The denominator (bottom) is how many equal pieces the whole is cut into.
• The numerator (top) is how many of those pieces you have.

So 3/4 means: cut the whole into 4 equal pieces, take 3.

The bottom number names the pieces

Change the denominator and you change the size of each piece. The bigger the denominator, the more pieces — so each one is smaller.

Same "1" on top, but 1/6 is a far smaller slice than 1/2. Reading a fraction is always the same: how many pieces you have (top), out of how many the whole was cut into (bottom).