AI Tutor
Imagine you have a giant chocolate bar and your friend gives you half of it. What if another friend gives you two fourths of the exact same bar — who gave you more chocolate?
It turns out, you get the exact same amount! Let's see how stacking colorful fraction strips shows us why.

Building a Fraction Wall

A fraction wall is a tower made of matching bars that are broken into equal pieces.
The top bar is 1 whole. The bars underneath are split into equal parts like halves, thirds, and fourths.
How can we use this colorful wall to spot fractions that are worth the exact same amount?

Finding Equivalent Fractions

Two fractions are equivalent fractions when they have different numbers but cover the exact same length.
To find them on a fraction wall, look straight down from one line to see which other lines match it perfectly.
Because two 14\frac{1}{4} strips make the same length as one 12\frac{1}{2} strip, we know that 12=24\frac{1}{2} = \frac{2}{4}.
In the same way, four 18\frac{1}{8} strips line up to make that same length, so 12=48\frac{1}{2} = \frac{4}{8}.