Greetings, my name is Markis Gardner with www.adreamforabetterworld.com. This is the second video in the series called working with basic fractions, incase you missed the first video you can get it free at www.adreamforabetterworld.com. You may also get my free workbook from there as well. If you do not have the workbook, please stop this video and get it free from www.adreamforabetterworld.com.
This video does have prerequisites, you must know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers. You will need to know the vocabulary in the workbook plus you should have finished the problems from the workbook covering the first video. Remember, it is never a good idea to learn new material until you are sure you are comfortable with the material you just learned. So please finish those problems before continuing.
If you have finished the prerequisites, then you are ready for this video. The workbook will help you a lot after you watch this video, so let us begin.
This video will only cover the addition and subtraction of a fraction with an integer like 2-3/8. So what do you do when you have one fraction and one integer? How do you add or subtract them? Take this problem for example, 2-3/8, how do we subtract them? Easy all you do is turn the integer into an improper fraction and then you could add the two fractions.
Now here is an easy question for you, which improper fraction should we use? We know that two is the same as 4/2 as well as 6/3, 8/4, 100/50, 400/200 as well as countless more. So which one should we choose? Do you remember the first video you watched? What did we talk about?—adding fractions with the same denominator. We already have a denominator—it is 8. So if we can choose the other fraction to have the same denominator 8, then we will have an easy time subtracting those denominators.
So we choose 2 to be 16/8 and now we can easily subtract 3/8 from 16/8. We get 13/8 or 1 5/8. Now let us go ahead and cover one more point that gives some students trouble. Let us take a look at this problem, 3-1 7/8, it looks simple enough for me when I teach this I prefer to change the integers into fractions so I have 24/8 instead of 3 15/8 instead of 1 7/8. So now it is easy, why? Because we learn in the first video that when subtracting fractions with the same denominator, all we do is subtract the numerators and leave the denominator the same. So we end up with 9/8 or 1 1/8.
Now some of my students prefer to add or subtract the integers and add or subtract the fractions, well I do not like teaching that method, I do teach it to give them the choice. The problem is that many of them would do it the wrong way. Take a look at the problem again 3-1 7/8. When they try to cut it apart many of them would do this. They will say 3–1+7/8 when in reality it should be 3-1-7/8 this is a big problem. So we get 2-7/8, so then we switch to 2 to 16/8 and then subtract the 7/8, then we get 9/8 which is the same as 1 and 1/8.
Of course there is another way you can do this, you can turn the 3 into 2 and 8/8 then we can subtract the integers and subtract the fractions to finally get 1 1/8. What? What do you mean we can turn 3 into 2 8/8? Well what is 8/8? It is one right, so 2+1 is 3 so it is the same. Here is another way to look at the problem 3=2+1 right, and you can rewrite 1 as 8/8 so we have 3 is 2 8/8.
How you want to do it is up to you, I have presented you a few different ways to do it, I hope you will try out them all and see which way you like the best. Remember, you will like one way sometimes and another way other times. This will be very true once you are ready to solve quadratic equations.
You will need to choose different methods for different problems, any student who does not try to learn multiple ways to solve a problem will encounter problems all their life. So please tackle that worksheet. I have given you and try the problems a few different ways, once you have solved all my problems go back and create your own.
Remember, to create your own problems you just choose an integer then add or subtract it to a fraction, that fr
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