Slide the coral band to and the teal band to . Where they cross is .
Cutting the square into 3 rows and 4 columns makes equal cells, and the two bands cross over of them. That is the whole reason you multiply the tops and multiply the bottoms: the tops count the rows and columns the overlap covers, and the bottoms count the rows and columns the square was cut into. cancels by 6 to , the same rectangle regrouped into bigger pieces. Notice the overlap is smaller than either band on its own - taking a fraction OF something always shrinks it, which is why adding the two fractions can never be the answer.
Step 1. Build it. Slide the coral band to of the height and the teal band to of the width.
Step 2. Cancel it. The overlap covers 6 of the 12 cells. Pull the simplify handle as far as it will go.
Step 3. Without the square. The square is covered. What is ?
What to say if they get stuck
of the HEIGHT and of the WIDTH. Drag one band at a time and watch the ruled cells change.
The whole square is now cut into little cells, and the overlap covers of them.
is not in its simplest form - both numbers divide by 6.
How multiply fractions differs from the skills beside it
The same exercise practises several skills, and telling them apart is often the difficulty rather than the exercise itself. On this page the skill is: multiply two proper fractions and simplify the result when required, and it stops where excludes finding a single fraction of a whole-number quantity.
Answered from what the skill map records about this skill, not from a template. Every answer here is on the page, and the same questions are the page's FAQ structured data.
Multiply two proper fractions and simplify the result when required. It is one of 55 named maths skills in the 11+, in the fractions, decimals and percentages strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.
Denominators are multiplied, never added. The wrong answers on this skill are built out of that, not out of random numbers, so it is worth naming out loud before your child meets it under time pressure.
Point at the next move rather than explaining the whole rule. Taking a fraction of a fraction makes it smaller, so multiply the two top numbers and the two bottom numbers, then simplify.
The skill map draws the line here: Excludes finding a single fraction of a whole-number quantity. A question past that line is testing a different named maths skill, which is worth knowing before you spend a week practising the wrong one.
The fractions, decimals and percentages strand holds 9 skills that are tested together, and the pages next to multiply fractions are recognise equivalent fractions, convert decimal and percentage and convert fraction and decimal. Each has its own exercise and its own link, and none of them needs an account.
Use Area Grid, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to multiply fractions, it runs in the browser with no account to make, nothing is scored, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. It also has its own link, so you can send it to a child without sending them anywhere else first.
Knowing which maths topic to practise is most of the work
A free diagnostic covers arithmetic, fractions, geometry, measure and data handling, and comes back with the topics to spend the next few weeks on.
