Ideas
Are you ready?
We've seen how to write a multiplication or division problem , by finding clues in our story problems, such as sharing, or groups of.
Examples
Example 1
Dylan has 120 chocolates to give out to 10 guests at his birthday party and wants to make sure each guest gets the same amount.
Write a number sentence for this story problem to find how much each guest would get.
If we know our total and want to find out how many groups we have, or how many are in each group, we need to divide.
Story problems with multiplication and division
We may see some different clues in our story problems, so we need to figure out if we need to multiply or divide.
Examples
Example 2
An apartment block is 36 metres tall and a house is 6 metres tall.
How many times smaller is the house than the apartment block?
For story problems, we need to look for key words that tell us what we need to do.
Written problems with division
Let's look at some written problems, and rewrite them as number problems. We also solve a problem where we need to change some of our information into a value we can use.
Examples
Example 3
Max's Motors sold 49 cars in a 7-day week.
If they sold the same number of cars every day, write a number sentence to show how many cars they sold each day. Use the (\div) symbol.
How many cars were sold each day?
If we have a total to share, we use division to work out how many groups, or how many in each group.
Written problems with remainders
When you are solving division story problems, you may still end up with a remainder.
Examples
Example 4
A show bag costs \$7.
How many show bags can I buy with \$31?
How much money will I have left over?
Words that suggest finding the total of a number of equally sized groups of something indicate multiplication.
Words that suggest sharing into equal groups will require us to use division.