Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Anne's Scribe

Today we learned about multiplying fractions. We made a pamphlet yesterday and filled in boxes. In one particular box we talked about Standard Algorithim and Array Models to help us multiply fractions easier and with better understanding.

In that box we learned about making ugly fractions into friendly fractions. How to do that was to take an ugly fraction (for example) 20/33 x 11/30. Those are what you can call ugly fractions! To make it easier for you and other people, you can just do a numerator swap (as Mr. Harbeck says) with the 20 and 11. So now your fraction is 11/33 x 20/30.

Now you can simplify both fractions. 11/33 can be simplified into 1/3 because 33 can be divided by 11, and 11 can be divided by 11. Or, 11 can fit into 33, 3 times. Or another way to show that it can be changed into 1/3 is because 11 and 33 is divisble by 11. 20/30 can be simplified into 2/3 because they are both divisible by 10. 10 fits into 20, 2 times. 10 fits into 30, 3 times. How hard was that?!

Now the final step is to get both fractions and multiply them. Now you are ended up with a much more easier and pretty fraction. Get ready for extreme multiply makeover! 1/3 (11/30) x 2/3 (20/30). Since we already talked about multiplying fractions by using cross multiplying we can now get a fraction without having to multiply large, ugly numbers. Wasn't that easy?!


click for a picture http://www.freewebs.com/annev/math.JPG

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

good job!...that was easy..i can clearly identify what you're talking about...honestly..i learned numerator swap this period in my entire life..(coz we had to learn different topics everyday in the philippines). but i know how to do standard algorithm, array model, and cancellation method(shortcut method)

Michael Jordan 873 said...

good jod! i like the diagram that you make, i can easily understand the swap numerator.

Nadine♡ said...

great job anne! that was vey easy to understand. nice diagram btw.

mariya 873 said...

wow, i liked your explanations. it's very easy to understand. good job, anne. also, nice diagram.

annedenisse 873 said...

Thanks guys! Hope that it actually made you guys understand more about the numerator swap and the other strategies we learned that math class.