In Let’s Be Rational, your student will develop an understanding of the four basic arithmetic operations with fractions, including mixed numbers. They will also describe strategies for using these operations when solving problems involving fractions.
Your child will learn how to:
- Use benchmarks and other strategies to make reasonable estimates for results of operations with fractions, including mixed numbers
- Develop ways to model sums, differences, products, and quotients, including the use of areas, fraction strips, and number lines
- Look for rules to generalize patterns in fraction operations
- Use your knowledge of fractions, equivalence of fractions, and properties of numbers to develop algorithms for adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing fractions
- Recognize when addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division is the appropriate operation to solve a problem
- Write fact families to show the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction, and between multiplication and division
- Solve problems using operations on fractions, including mixed numbers
- Find values for variables by using operations on fractions, including mixed numbers
When your child encounters a new problem, it is a good idea to ask them questions such as:
- What models or diagrams might be helpful in understanding the problem situation and the relationships among quantities?
- What models or diagrams might help you decide which operation is useful in solving a problem?
- What is a reasonable estimate for the answer?