Last week, we looked at how to visualize division of fractions; in the process, we saw that you can multiply the first fraction (dividend) by the reciprocal of the second (divisor): “invert and multiply”. Here I want to look at a few of the many times we have been asked how to do it or …
We’ve looked at what it means to multiply fractions, including whole and mixed numbers; now it’s time for division of fractions. We’ll start here with pictures, similar to what we did for multiplication, but a little more complicated. Then next time, we’ll see additional ways to understand why we “invert and multiply”.
Last week we looked at how to multiply fractions, and why we do it that way. But what do we do when one of the numbers is a whole number, or when one or both are mixed numbers? And do we have to do it the way we are taught?
(A new question of the week) A recent question involved a word problem about fractions, which will fit in nicely with the current series on fractions. We’ll explore several ways to solve a rather tricky fraction word problem, some avoiding fractions as much as possible, some focusing on the meaning of the fractions, and others …
Last week we looked at some questions about multiplication that arise once students learn to multiply fractions or decimals. Let’s turn to the underlying question: How do you multiply fractions, and why do we do it that way? How does cancelling fit in?
A fairly common question arises when students learn to multiply or divide fractions and decimals: They discover that multiplication, which always used to make numbers larger (2, multiplied by 3, becomes 6), now can make them smaller (2, multiplied by 1/2, becomes 1). How can that be? Here we’ll look at a few answers we’ve …
(A new question of the week) Let’s look at a quick question from mid-September, that had a number of different answers. In some ways, this is an easy question; but we’ll take it a little further, so keep reading to the end.
I’ll finish this series on place value and writing numbers, with a question that’s not quite as simple as you might think: why we use commas and decimal points as we do. Americans may be surprised at some of the answers – and some of the questions.
Last time we looked at how to convert a number between decimal and word form. Now we’ll move into some tricky cases such as where to use “and” or a hyphen, to eliminate ambiguity.
We’ve been looking at the place value concept, and writing number in expanded form(s); but how about the word form of decimals? This can be confusing at several points. We’ll start with reading a number and writing its word form, and then do the reverse.