Let's learn to solve some real world problems with everything we just learned about multiplying fractions!
Here's our first example.
Sandy drinks 2/3 of a glass of water every hour. How much water does Sandy drink in 5 hours?
We need to figure out how much water she drinks in 5 hours.
This means that we need to multiply the fraction 2/3 by 5.👇
2/3 × 5 = ?
Let's figure out the answer to this equation.
The answer is 10/3.
Tip: We can convert 10/3 into a mixed number. A mixed number will be easier to picture for this problem.
To convert 10/3 to a mixed number, we divide 10 by 3. 👇
10/3 is 3 1/3 as a mixed number.
Sandy drank 3 and 1/3 glasses of water in 5 hours.
Excellent work solving this word problem.
Let's try another example.
Eddie saw 7/8 of an apple pie on the table. He ate 1/2 of it and took a nap 😂. How much of the apple pie did Eddie eat?
The problem tells us to find 1/2 of 7/8 of an apple pie.
Let's draw a picture of this pie:
“1/2 of 7/8” tells us to multiply.
1/2 × 7/8 = ?
Multiplying fractions is simple.
We just multiply the numerators.
Then we multiply the denominators.
Now, we have the answer:
Eddie ate 7/16 of the apple pie.
Great job learning how to solve real world problems with multiplication of fractions. 👏
Now, try the practice to solve some problems on your own.