🍰 Fraction Wall

Shade the bars and look at where they end. Two fractions that line up exactly are the same number, however different they look written down.

Click any bar to shade it.

Questions

Shade a couple of bars and see which goes further.

Question—

Right0

What kind

The wall: Every bar is the same length — one whole. The top one is undivided, the next is cut into halves, then thirds, and so on. Click a part to shade up to it: click the third part of the quarters bar and you have shaded three quarters. Click the same part again to clear that row.
Why it works: Shade 1/2 and 3/6 and they end at exactly the same place, because they are exactly the same amount. The bars go gold when they match. That is what "equivalent fractions" means, and it is far more convincing seen than explained.
Which is bigger: Shade two rows and it tells you which goes further. 3/4 beats 2/3 — not by much, which is exactly why looking at it helps.
Careful with the bottom number: A bigger number underneath means smaller pieces, not a bigger fraction. A twelfth is tiny; a half is huge. This catches out nearly everybody at first, and the wall makes it obvious in a second.
How the comparing is done: In whole numbers, never in decimals. To compare 3/4 and 5/7 it works out 3 × 7 = 21 against 5 × 4 = 20. Turning them into decimals first would make 1/3 into 0.3333333… and sooner or later two fractions that are equal would be called different — which on a page whose job is to show you which is bigger would not be a rounding error, it would be wrong.