Christmas Tree Fractions of a Collection Craftivity
Fractions of a collection, made concrete — ten baubles, four colours, and a tree your students can see the maths in.
This Christmas Tree Fractions of a Collection Craftivity builds one of the trickiest fraction ideas out of something students can hold. They colour the ten baubles on their tree using up to four colours, making each bauble one solid colour, then record every colour as a fraction of ten — 3/10 red, 5/10 green, 2/10 gold. Because every bauble is coloured and each one is a single colour, the fractions have to add to 10/10, so the recording sheet checks itself. Students finish by writing it in words: "___/10 of the baubles are ____________."
Why teachers love it:
- The whole is right there in front of them — ten baubles, so each one is a tenth and each colour group is a multiple of that unit fraction
- It checks itself — colour every bauble one solid colour and the fractions must total 10/10, so an error is visible without marking
- The wording does the teaching — "of the baubles are" is the same "of" as "1/4 of 20", so students are already speaking the language of the next step
- Three recording formats, one activity — choose the sheet that suits your class, or differentiate across them
- Curriculum aligned — written to AC9M3N02, and tenths bridge straight into decimals and percentages for AC9M4N03
- Teacher ideas page included — how to run it, the questions worth asking and where to take it next
- Beautiful display piece — a wall of coloured trees, every one a different fraction story
Perfect for:
- Introducing or revising fractions of a collection
- Year 2, Year 3 and Year 4 classrooms
- Maths rotations, small groups and relief lessons
- December maths that still covers content
- Christmas classroom displays
What's included:
5 printable pages:
- Teacher ideas page — how to run the activity, questions to ask and extensions
- Blank tree — ten baubles ready to colour
- Pot sheet, table version — four per page, with colour swatch, how many and fraction of ten
- Pot sheet, sentence frames — four per page, "___/10 of the baubles are ____________"
- A4 recording sheet — colour, how many, fraction and total, plus four sentence frames and an extension question
The kind of maths lesson that ends with a wall full of trees — and a class that can finally explain what a tenth is.
Planning your Christmas classroom?
Our Ultimate Christmas guide has more activity ideas, display tips and freebies to use alongside this resource.
SPECIFICATIONS
Format: PDF, set up for A4 paper. Exactly what's inside is listed above.
Editing: This download is not editable. The PDF is flattened to protect the design and the artists' work we license.
Printing: Open the file in a PDF reader and choose 'Fit to page' or 'Actual size'. Do a test page on plain paper first — card, colour and black-and-white all print well.
Licence: One classroom, one teacher. Please don't share, resell or post the file online; buy an extra licence for each colleague who wants their own copy.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
You'll need a PDF reader on your device — the free Adobe Acrobat Reader is the most reliable. Double-click the downloaded file to open it.
If a page shows on screen but won't print properly, open it in Acrobat Reader, choose Print → Advanced → tick 'Print as image'.
Stuck? Contact us and we'll sort it out.
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