Maths

Halving/ sharing.

Before you try a worksheet, here are some practical ways of halving/sharing. Remember it is splitting the number or amount of objects into two. Show children sharing by giving your child 1 object, then give yourself 1 object, then your child 1 object and then yourself 1 object. So you are sharing 1 by 1. Keep repeating till all objects are shared into two piles, one for you and one for your child.

• Find some objects around the house for example, carrots, flowers, beads.
• Have a certain amount of objects (it has to be an even number or the objects won’t be shared equally), for example 2 flowers.
• Share the flowers out, so give yourself one flower and give someone else the other flower.
• Ask your child, how many do we have each? “I have 1 flower, you have 1 flower. So half of 2 is 1”.
• Children to say the sentence “half of 2 is 1”. OR “2 shared is 1”.

Here are some example questions to practically complete:

• There are 4 peas on my plate. I share my peas equally with my dad. How many peas do we have each? “4 shared is...” “Halve of 4 is...”
• I have 6 teddy bears. I share my teddies equally with my sister. How many teddies do we have each? “Half of 6 is...” “6 shared is...”
• There are 8 strawberries on my plant. I share the strawberries equally with my brother. How many do we have each? “8 shared is...” “Half of 8 is...”
• I have 10 beans on my plate. I share my beans equally. How many do I have left? “Half of 10 is...” “10 shared equally is...”

Key vocabulary to use: altogether, halve, shared, equal, less.