Finding the Missing Numerator

Hello. My name is Miss Bishop, and I will be helping you with problems involving finding the missing numerator. Now, to find the missing numerator, we are going to use equivalent fractions. Those are fractions that have the same amount. So we're going to use those equivalent fractions to help us find our missing numerator.

If you look here, we have 2/4. And 2/4 equals something over 8. So we're going to use for this one two circles, two circles that are the same size. And we're going to shade in, for the first one, 2/4, to see what 2/4 looks like. And 2/4 looks like this.

And then we're going to shade in this one, is eighths-- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8s. It's broken into eighths. And we're going to find the fraction that has the same amount. It's shaded in the same amount as 2/4. So if you look, it's 1/2 of the circle there that's shaded in. So if we shade in the same amount-- there's the same amount shaded in-- now we can count how many are shaded. And that's going to give us our numerator.

So we have one, two, three, four-- four shaded out of eight. So 4 is our missing numerator there. So 2/4 is equivalent to 4/8, and that's how we find our missing numerator.

All right. Now let's use some fraction bars to help us find the missing numerator for this one. We have 4/10 equals something over 5. So again, we have 4/10. So we can shade in 4/10. So 1/10, 2/10, 3/10, 4/10. And using our fraction bar-- we have fifths here-- we want to shade in the same amount to see how many fifths that will equal. And if you look here, that's the same amount is shaded in. And we have one 2/5. So 4/10 is equivalent to 2/5. And 2 is our missing numerator there.

All right, now I'd like you to do one. And I'm going to help you out with it in the beginning. We have 6/12 equals something over 6. So we have 6/12. And here we have 12ths. This has broken into 12s, and we want to find six of them-- so one, two, three, four, five, six. So we want to shade in six of these.

And then I want you to look at this circle here. And it's broken into sixths. And how many sixths would give you the same amount is equivalent to 6/12? So look at that, and get your answer. And when you have your answer, press Continue.

OK, let's see what you came up with. Well, we have 6/12. And again, it looks like 1/2 of this circle is shaded in. We're going to shade in this much, because now they have the same amount shaded in. And if we count, we have 1, 2, 3/6. So 3 was our missing numerator there, and 6/12 is equal to 3/6.

Well, very good. So now you know how to use equivalent fractions to find that missing numerator. Remember you need the fractions who have the same amount shaded in or equal the same amount in length. Have fun with this, and work well.