Stacked bars showing 1 whole subdivided into halves, thirds, quarters and more: the classic visual aid for comparing fractions.

Free printable fraction strips PDF. Nine stacked bars showing 1 whole divided into halves, thirds, quarters, fifths, sixths, eighths, tenths and twelfths.

Fraction Strips | Free Printable PDF

Fraction Strips

Lay a ruler vertically across the page at any point. The fractions that bar represents at that point line up across all rows. At the halfway point, you can see 1/2 = 2/4 = 3/6 = 4/8 = 5/10 = 6/12 simultaneously.

Use a ruler to compare fractions

Print on cardstock, cut along the segment dividers, and the strips become physical manipulatives. Students can rearrange and combine them (place a 1/4 next to a 1/3 to see the sum) in a way that purely visual comparison doesn't allow.

Cut them out for hands-on manipulation

There's no 1/7 or 1/9 strip. These denominators don't have clean equivalences with the others (1/7 doesn't equal any combination of halves, thirds, etc.), so including them would clutter the page without adding teaching value. They show up in later grades when fractions are more general.

Notice the missing denominators

Step 1: comparing single fractions. Step 2: identifying equivalents (1/2 = 2/4 = 4/8). Step 3: adding fractions with the same denominator (1/4 + 2/4 = 3/4 — count segments). Step 4: adding fractions with different denominators (1/2 + 1/3 — find a common denominator by aligning strips). Each step is a natural progression on the same paper.