From: Claire (for Teacher2Teacher Service)
Date: May 25, 2007 at 16:26:10
Subject: Re: Multiplying fractions

Hi, Jessy --

Thanks for writing to T2T. Here's one idea:

The fifth grade has 40 students. 2/5 of them play on a baseball team. On 
Wednesday 1/8 of the players wore their team hats to school. What fraction of
the fifth grade was wearing team hats? How many students were wearing hats?

When I think of models of multiplying fractions, I think of the word "of"
replacing the x symbol. 1/8 of 2/5 is calculated by multiplying 1/8 * 2/5.

I included the quantity 40 so kids would have another context and another way
to verify answers. 

Multiplication of fractions can also be modeled by paper folding. Let me know
if you want more details on that.

I hope this is helpful.

 -Claire, for the T2T service

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