FractionsTo 12
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Simplifying fractions worksheets
A fraction in lowest terms is the tidiest way to write an amount: six eighths and three quarters are the same size, but three quarters says it with the smallest numbers. These free printable worksheets give a fraction that can be reduced and ask a child to write it in lowest terms.
Kid stuck on one? You don’t just get the sheet.
Simplifying fractions
The answer key prints on a separate page.
What's on this sheet
The clean method is to divide the top and bottom by their greatest common factor. Six and eight share a factor of two, so six eighths becomes three quarters in a single step; had they shared a four, one division would still have finished it. Dividing by the GCF is fastest, but dividing by any common factor and repeating gets to the same place — it just takes more steps.
Why this sheet works
Every fraction on the page is built to reduce, so there is always real work to do, and each answer stays a proper fraction with a numerator below its denominator — nothing that secretly equals a whole, and no mixed numbers. Knowing when to stop is half the skill: a fraction is finished when the only factor its top and bottom still share is one.
How this one works
One question from this sheet, worked through a step at a time.
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2 =2×1
10 =2×5
2 =2×1
10 =2×5
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- 2/10. Simplifying is making an equivalent fraction run backwards: instead of cutting the pieces smaller, glue them back into bigger ones. The amount does not change, only how it is cut.
- So the question is which number goes into BOTH 2 and 10. 2 does — 2 = 2 × 1 and 10 = 2 × 5.
- Take that 2 off both: 2 ÷ 2 = 1 and 10 ÷ 2 = 5, so 2/10 = 1/5. Nothing but 1 goes into both 1 and 5 now, which is how you know the pieces are as big as they get.