Converting (Reducing) an Improper Fraction To A Mixed Fraction:
Thinking About It: Converting (Reducing) is about taking all the pieces you have and sorting them into full sets to see how many whole sets you have and what the remaining fractional set is. An example: Mr. Wellman has 15/12 donuts. 12 divides into 15 evenly once, so he has one whole set. He has 3 donuts as his remainder, so 3 becomes the new numerator. Mr. Wellman has 1 3/12 boxes of donuts but we still need to simplify the 3 /12 down so the numerator & denominator have only a factor of one in common. If you need to, make a factor tree for three and twelve. Remember that we get rid of alike factors and keep what is different: 3 12 1X3 3X4 3X2X2 --------------------------------------------- 1 2X2= 4 We see that the 3's are alike so we get rid of them, we keep the the 1 and the the 2X2 that equals 4. Remember to always put the whole set back next to the simplified fraction: Our final answer is that Mr. W has 1 1/4 boxes of donuts. |