Today Ted and Pup’s friend Duck has come to play. They have been busy playing outside in the garden and now they have come in for a snack. They have a problem though. They are struggling to share out the bananas fairly. For it to be fair, Ted, Pup and Duck all need to have the same amount.

They try to share the bananas fairly. Is this right?

No! That is not fair. Poor Ted does not have a banana. They try again.

Is this fair? How do you think they should share out the bananas? How about like this?

Yes! That is fair. There are 3 friends and 3 bananas. They all have 1 banana. They all have the same. It is fair. They have shared fairly.

After snack they play with cars. They have 6 cars to use. They want to share them fairly. They all need to have the same number of cars. Is this fair?

That is not fair sharing. Ted and Duck only have 1 car each, Pup has 4. They try to share the cars again.

Each of the friends has 2 cars. Is that fair? Have they all got the same number of cars? Yes! That is fair sharing. Well done Ted, Pup and Duck!

After playing with the cars, the friends decide to draw a picture. They have got this many pens to share. Can you count them? 

The friends have 9 pens to share between them. Remember for it to be fair sharing they need to have the same number of pens each.

Is this fair sharing?

It is fair sharing. Pup has 3 pens, Ted has 3 pens and Duck has 3 pens.

Please work on fair sharing with your child today. Ask your child to choose 3 toys and lots of objects to share (use fruit, sweets, crayons, small toys, building blocks, leaves and so on). Make sure the number of objects divides by 3. Ask your child to share out the objects fairly so each of their toys has the same number.

Let them rearrange the objects however they want in order to work out how to share them. If they do appear to be struggling to arrange the objects fairly, demonstrate how to share them out one at a time for each toy (as if you are dealing out playing cards) until all the objects have been shared fairly. You could reinforce this by saying “One for Duck, one for Ted, one for Pup. Two for Duck, two for Ted, two for Pup” and so on.