06-Dividing Fractions
07-Dividing Mixed Numbers
The students will be spending a couple of days learning the concept of dividing with just fractions before we throw in the mixed numbers, but the idea is the same, so to save some time, I’m combining them into one lesson here. There will be three days this week, making sure they completely understand it as this is the one new operation with fractions in the sixth grade core.
To put it into sixth grade terms, dividing fractions is gross, so we don’t do it. Rather, than dividing by a fraction, we multiply by its reciprocal. I began discussing this at the start of the multiplying sections, so I’ll just quickly review. Remember, a reciprocal is just the inverse of the fraction. Some kids like to say re”flip”rocal because to find the reciprocal, you just flip the fraction.
Once you understand the reciprocal, division is the exact same as multiplying.
