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Karen E.
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I'm looking for some real life applications for my daughter for multiplying fractions ... something she can grasp, something beyond the very unreal examples in math books such as, "Joe ate 3/4 of the pizza. He gave his friend half of what was left. How much did he give his friend?" I can't really recall ever trying to figure out what fraction of a pizza I was giving someone .... 
When in real life do we do this? When in life do I do this? Or shall we chalk it up to "needed to move on and pass SATs down the road ...."
Ideas will be very much appreciated. 
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Karen E.
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Jamberry77
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Multiplying fractions....the first thing that comes to mind is recipes. Find a recipe with lots of diff. denominators like 2, 3, 4 (make up some with 5, 6, etc.) and double or triple.
Real life: she's in charge of cooking a meal for the parish for their annual St. Patrick Day party. She chooses the recipes but they have to be multiplied. How many people are expected? 500? 800? By how much must the recipe be multiplied?
You can always change ingredients to be things like 7/16 instead of 1/2, also, to make it challenging enough.
You are so good to think up ways to teach her instead of making it dry.
Kelly in NC
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Lissa
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And how about the king-sized Hershey bars that are divided into 16 or 20 squares? I always like math you can eat.
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Rachel May
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Here is a sample from the Math U See website. Math U See is big into applied math so at the bottom of each of the student pages, there are some story problems.
Math U See Fraction Sample Pages
Math Chef is a fun book. We got it from the library.
Thinking of real life applications with fractions--sewing yardage?
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Thomas and Anthony (10), Maria (8), Charles (6), Cecilia (5), James (3), and Joseph (1)
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lapazfarm
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Definitely we would multiply fractions when doing construction.
You are building a house. You have windows which are 2' 3 1/2" by 3' 6 3/4" . You want to put 9/16" molding all around. What length molding will you need for each window? What length of molding should you buy for all 12 windows in the house?
Of course this involves adding as well as multiplying fractions, plus a little geometry, but I always like to do a larger project that we can return to many times as new skills are learned. One of my students favorite projects(when I taught middle school math) was designing a "dream house" where students eventually drew up the plans in scale, and then did scale models. Some of them were just amazing and creative. I find that architecture is a great tool for teaching fractions, as well as ratios (scale drawings), measurements, and many other skills.
Hmm... now I'm thinking MY ds is about at the right age to begin this project...the wheels are turning...
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
LaPaz Home Learning
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Karen E.
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| Posted: Jan 30 2006 at 1:49pm | IP Logged
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Lissa wrote:
| And how about the king-sized Hershey bars that are divided into 16 or 20 squares? I always like math you can eat. |
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Now, I LOVE the idea of using Hershey bars. But, to say I could teach fractions with them is to assume that I'll break them up and share them. Oh, Lissa ... how naive of you. 
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Karen E.
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Visit my blog, with its shockingly clever title, "Karen Edmisten."
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Karen E.
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Jamberry77 wrote:
| Multiplying fractions....the first thing that comes to mind is recipes. Find a recipe with lots of diff. denominators like 2, 3, 4 (make up some with 5, 6, etc.) and double or triple. |
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Kelly, you're right -- and I do think doubling or tripling is easy for her to see, but what we're missing is when will one use things like this:
1/3 x 3/8
3/4 x 2/3
4/21 x 7/9
and the countless other examples in any math book? What's the point of these? Who uses them?
Jamberry77 wrote:
| Real life: she's in charge of cooking a meal for the parish for their annual St. Patrick Day party ... How many people are expected? 500? 800? By how much must the recipe be multiplied? |
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Well, personally, I'd just move to a smaller parish.
Just kidding.
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Karen E.
mom to three on earth, and several souls in God's care
Visit my blog, with its shockingly clever title, "Karen Edmisten."
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Karen E.
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Rachel ... sewing. Now, that might work. Except I don't really sew. Whoosh, could I feel more inadequate today?
lapazfarm wrote:
Definitely we would multiply fractions when doing construction.
You are building a house. You have windows which are 2' 3 1/2" by 3' 6 3/4" . You want to put 9/16" molding all around. What length molding will you need for each window? What length of molding should you buy for all 12 windows in the house? |
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At this point, I'd simply cry and then go to the Yellow Pages and call someone who enjoys building things. 
Truly, all of you dear, helpful women ... I'm not trying to be a pain or a smart-aleck ... you simply must understand the limited kind of brain you're dealing with.
Here's how my daughter and I would both respond to the following problem in her math book:
"Larry ordered 3/8 of a pizza. He gave Pat 1/3 of his pizza. How much of a pizza did Pat get?"
She and I would both say this sort of thing:
"Do you think Pat is a guy? Or his wife? And why would someone order 3/8 of a pizza? That's ridiculous. I might order by the slice, but never in fractions. Pat must be a guy friend, because Larry certainly would give his own wife more than 1/3 of 3/8 of a pizza. Are you hungry? Let's get something to eat. Then maybe we could write a story about a hungry mother and daughter who abandon math, join forces to open a pizzeria and hire people to do all the stuff that makes them lapse slowly into comas ... i.e., the measuring, the math ...."
lapazfarm wrote:
| One of my students favorite projects(when I taught middle school math) was designing a "dream house" where students eventually drew up the plans in scale, and then did scale models. |
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You see, this would be sheer torture to me. (See what you're dealing with? And my daughter's exactly like me.)
I do feel compelled to say, for no reason other than pride, that I did fine in math in school, but only because I wanted to keep my straight A's ... it wasn't because I enjoyed a single minute of it.
Thanks for the suggestions, but I still am not finding many instances in which real, live adults multiply fractions on a regular basis. Please keep helping me, though ... I obviously need it.
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Karen E.
mom to three on earth, and several souls in God's care
Visit my blog, with its shockingly clever title, "Karen Edmisten."
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Lissa
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Karen wrote:
1/3 x 3/8
and the countless other examples in any math book? What's the point of these? Who uses them? |
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Karen wrote:
"Larry ordered 3/8 of a pizza. He gave Pat 1/3 of his pizza. How much of a pizza did Pat get?"
She and I would both say this sort of thing:
"Do you think Pat is a guy? Or his wife? And why would someone order 3/8 of a pizza? That's ridiculous. I might order by the slice, but never in fractions. Pat must be a guy friend, because Larry certainly would give his own wife more than 1/3 of 3/8 of a pizza. Are you hungry? Let's get something to eat. Then maybe we could write a story about a hungry mother and daughter who abandon math |
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ROFL!! OK, so granted, maybe you and Anne-with-an-e are less likely to find unavoidable reasons to multiply fractions than some. Unless maybe someday she does take up sewing or carpentry...and then she'll think back on these days and bless you for showing her how to do what seemed pointless at the time, just like I now bless my mother for making me take typing instead of creative writing in high school. Turns out the typing was a much more useful skill for my writing career than that 11th grade bad-short-story—oops, I mean creative writing class would have been.
I've been searching my (admittedly weary) brain for examples of times I really do need to multiply fractions in real life (being neither a seamstress, nor a carpenter, nor a math freak like my oldest daughter) and I did come up with one: it's an extremely handy form of procrastination.
Like this: I have written half a novel. I have eight weeks left in which to finish the book. How much of the book must I write each week in order to meet the deadline? How much will I wind up writing in the last two weeks after I have written perhaps 1/32 a week for the next six? How many more math problems can I distract myself with before I have to wrench my attention back to my work?
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Leonie
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Karen E. wrote:
Truly, all of you dear, helpful women ... I'm not trying to be a pain or a smart-aleck ... you simply must understand the limited kind of brain you're dealing with.
Here's how my daughter and I would both respond to the following problem in her math book:
"Larry ordered 3/8 of a pizza. He gave Pat 1/3 of his pizza. How much of a pizza did Pat get?"
She and I would both say this sort of thing:
"Do you think Pat is a guy? Or his wife? And why would someone order 3/8 of a pizza? That's ridiculous. I might order by the slice, but never in fractions. Pat must be a guy friend, because Larry certainly would give his own wife more than 1/3 of 3/8 of a pizza. Are you hungry? Let's get something to eat. Then maybe we could write a story about a hungry mother and daughter who abandon math, join forces to open a pizzeria and hire people to do all the stuff that makes them lapse slowly into comas ... i.e., the measuring, the math ...."
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Karen,
I am not meaning to sidetrack your thread but I love this - it is the way my Thomas thinks!
When he was 7, he was independently doing a maths page in a workbook. I came back into the kitchen and Thomas exclaimed "I love this maths but there is not enough room to write!".
I went over to see what he was doing.
The problem he was working on said - "What is the difference between an item with a cost of $5.00 and another with the cost of $4.20?"
Thomas was writing a long spiel about how sometimes you might think the cheaper article was better but the more expensive may be better quality and how you need to compare the goods carefully.
When I told him that the book meant subtraction when it talked about difference, he was quite amazed.
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Leonie in Sydney
Living Without School
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Karen E.
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Lissa wrote:
Like this: I have written half a novel. I have eight weeks left in which to finish the book. How much of the book must I write each week in order to meet the deadline? How much will I wind up writing in the last two weeks after I have written perhaps 1/32 a week for the next six? How many more math problems can I distract myself with before I have to wrench my attention back to my work? |
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My answer to your math problem:
Is it Martha or Charlotte? How old is she now?
(And can her age be expressed in a fraction?)
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Karen E.
mom to three on earth, and several souls in God's care
Visit my blog, with its shockingly clever title, "Karen Edmisten."
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Karen E.
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Leonie wrote:
I am not meaning to sidetrack your thread but I love this - it is the way my Thomas thinks! |
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I love your Thomas! He's a kindred spirit!
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Karen E.
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Visit my blog, with its shockingly clever title, "Karen Edmisten."
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Erica Sanchez
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Karen and Leonie - too funny!!!!
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Erica in San Diego
(dh)Cash, Emily, Grace, Nicholas, Isabella, Annie, Luke, Max, Peter, 2 little souls ++, and sweet Rose who is legally ours!
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4Real Forums : Living and Loving Numbers
Topic: Help!
