Fraction strips turn a fraction into a length you can see. Each strip above is one whole, cut into equal pieces: two for halves, three for thirds, and so on down to twentieths. Stack them and comparing fractions stops being arithmetic. Shade 2/3 on one strip and 3/5 on another, and the answer is simply whichever shading reaches further to the right, no common denominator needed.

These strips are interactive, not a flat image. Click pieces to shade them and the tool names the fraction you built, reduces it to simplest form, and marks that value with a dashed line across every other strip. Strips whose own shading equals your value get ringed, which is what makes equivalent fractions obvious: shade 1/4 and the line falls exactly on the boundary of 2/8, 3/12, 4/16, and 5/20. It also makes unit fractions concrete, because the pieces get visibly narrower as denominators grow, the point students most often get backwards.

Use the range selector to keep the set as simple as the lesson needs, then print with your shading intact. If you want a clean paper set instead, the printable fraction strips below come in six ranges, labelled or blank, in color or black and white, and they print straight from the browser with no download.