A fraction is a part of a number or object which is usually made up of 2 numbers, the top number is the Numerator and the bottom number is known as the denominator.  An example of a fraction is 1/3, which means 1 out of 3.

How to add fractions?

For this example I will use the following fractions – 1/3 and 1/4

The first thing to do is to make sure that both fractions have the same denominator (Bottom number) for this we need to work out the Lowest Common Denominator is.

Multiples of 3 are : 3,6,9,12

Multiples of 4 are : 4,8,12

So the answer is 12 because it appears in both times tables and is the lowest common multiple of the two times tables.

Now that we have worked out the denominator we can now start working out the numerator 

Because the denominator was 3 we needed to times that by 4 to get it to 12, so what we do with the denominator we now do with the numerator so we do 1 X 4 = 4

so 1/3 now becomes 4/12

and 1/4 will become 3/12 ( this is because we have done the same as what we had done to the denominator.)

4/12 + 3/12 = 4 + 3 /12 = 7/12

so 1/3 + 1/4 = 7/12

Hope this helped you to understand adding fractions.