Authentic Teaching – Pizza and Fractions

When ordering pizza – use fractions to discuss the slices and how many pieces everyone ate.  I ate 1/2 while you ate 1/3.  If I ate 1/2 of a small pizza and you ate 1/3 of an extra-large pizza, did I eat more?  If I ate 1/2 of a pizza and you ate 4/8 of the same pizza, who ate more?  Lots of authentic ways to teach fractions.

You can also teach the early vocabulary of fractions with young children.  When discussing ordering a pizza you can use words like whole, half, and quarter.  “Half” the pizza with cheese, and “Half” with pineapple and ham (my favorite).  Hmmm…gotta go order pizza for lunch now!