Fractions Visual aids?

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We are currently working on fraction sums

adding
subtracting
multiplying
dividing

Has anyone come across any useful (and cheap!) multi-sensory aids for this along the lines of numicon or montessori that they would recommend?

I have to watch my budget, so am hoping you lot can help me avoid an expensive mistake.

Go to TTS and they do a complete fractions, percentage, decimal set which is lovely. My budget wasn't big i think it was thirty quid. Or go to Smart Kids they have some good fraction stuff.

And of course, those wonderful real life learning aids - pizza and cake :o Yes, that is how I taught DS1 about fractions!

He pestered me for some of these, as he was getting it, and with their help, everything clicked into place and he consolidated everything he'd eaten learnt
www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Resources-Fraction-Tower-Equivalency/dp/B000296LSO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395324575&sr=8-1&keywords=fractions

Moving on, to things like 1/2 of 8, 1/3 of 15 and so on, you can also use food - just small, regular shaped food like tictacs, iced gems, cheddars or grapes. This also introduces the concept of division.

I used a do it yourself way. Started with large circle cardboard bases and the cut out various sized pieces if pizza/cake to make up a whole i.e 3rds 5ths. I then used grapes, pasta shapes to be shared around the pizza. With lots of practice my dd got the hang of it and then we moved to just using pasta shapes on the table embedding what method we were using each time.

Cuisenaire rods may be worth looking at for fractions.

?

indeed for this dyslexic - sums and fractions are yukky!

www.gltc.co.uk/fraction/percentage-tower-cubesgltc/fcp-product/10000001921?kpid=10000001921&gclid=CJ3Jn9uJor0CFUcTwwodfbkAJQ

Quite like these.

I have been doing fractions with mine - all need lots and lots of practice with lots of visuals (and practical stuff) Google fraction games and look on Topmarks as there are loads of online games/visuals which are really good for overlearning.

These Raibow Fraction Tiles are lovely and good for stimulus equivalence (ie showing there are lots of ways of presenting same info) as lots of stickers showing fractions in circles or squares forms.
Less than £15 too.
My ds is using them to do his homework as we speak.

Thank you all!

I'm in severe danger of overcoming my lifelong aversion to arithmetic with your help

Just in case you haven't come across it yet, this gives you a full set of lesson plans from reception to year 11 that maps to to the NC. It's free unlike so many educational resources.

www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm

It's not differentiated but it's a hell of a good starting point for those of us oldies who did maths too long ago to be up to date with all that modern newfangled stuff they do at school nowadays.

A bit of digging around the site also takes you to some standardised assessments, which can be helpful to some as well.

The inherent weakness in the NC is it tells you what to teach but not HOW.
An example:
Count reliably at
least 20 objects,
recognising that
when rearranged the
number of objects
stays the same;
estimate a number of
objects that can be
checked by counting

Great, so where are the task breakdowns, a flowchart if you will of how to do it and what to move to if your strategy doesn't work? This is an endemic problem in every filed, not least of all mine (s/lt). It is no great skill to assess and tell others where the problems are. However, when you turn and ask for help implementing an intervention and recording progress, generally all you see is a clean pair of heels.

Teachers needs explicit guidance, in particular with struggling pupils, and they don't get it.
It makers me so angry.

Risca's OT picked up on the fact that DS is now playing imaginatively. I had to calm myself down when she commented as I was secretly SO excited at someone else witnessing it.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that almost anything can be taught to almost anyone if only the HOW to teach it bit can be defined and the time needed to acquire the skill found. DS's imaginative play being the cumulative result of years of effort since toddlerhood (he's 9).

HOW to learn is not a part of current teacher training - an oversight grossly obvious that it truly boggles my mind, yet explains so much about the problems with schools so many of us encounter.