This week’s mental arithmetic questions for Year 3 are all about fractions. The first couple of questions are simple, finding halves of multiples of 10. Most children learn the halves of even numbers up to 10 but find it harder to work out half of numbers such as 30 or 50, where this knowledge is not so useful.
The next two questions look at a different aspect of fractions; sharing one whole one into equal parts and naming the parts. Questions 5 and 6 look at finding a quarter of numbers.
Probably the hardest two questions involve counting up in quarters and finding a number half way between two others. Finding the number half way between three and a half and four is quite tricky and children need to have spent some time using number lines and counting in quarters to be successful with this.
Finally a couple of questions which test knowledge of the meaning of a fraction and that the larger the bottom number (denominator) the smaller the fraction will be (if the top number (numerator) is the same).