Learning Fractions with Hershey's Chocolate

We had another spontaneous activity at meal time this week.  I had recently read part of The Hershey's Milk Chocolate Fractions Book by Jerry Pallotta that I had actually planned on doing when we discussed fractions while doing F. (I found this book a while ago over at Ticia's blog Adventures in Mommydom)

I just kept putting it off, but decided I needed to read it before having to return it to the library. We only got a few pages in and the girls were getting really frustrated that they couldn't eat their chocolate.  So, I let them eat them, sharing them out evenly.  What amazed me, was that Amelia wanted to do it again after I returned the book.  So I simplified it a bit.  We talked about the bar being 1 whole bar (in the wrapper and out of the wrapper).  Then I broke it into 2 pieces, putting half on one side of the paper and one on the other.  I wrote the fractions above the candy, telling the girls they had 1 of two parts.  Then we pushed them together to show two of two parts make one whole.

Then I broke each half into half giving us 4 quarters.  Once again I wrote the fraction, explaining we had 1 of 4 parts as I wrote.

Then we put them back together and I showed them 4 of 4 parts added together make 1 whole bar.

Then we shared them out and ate them:

Mommy and daddy had to share 3 pieces, so we got 1 and a half rectangles, while the girls each got 3 rectangles which were 1/4 of the bar.

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