Question

Hello! I am attempting to homeschool my 11 year old son and its been going great!I gave him a list of math questions to answer but he just said he didn't understand.. the way I tried to teach it did not help him understand it. Can you explain in detail (if you don't mind) exactly how you found the answer so he can get it. Thanks!
Questions I wrote for my son:
You have to round these 2 fractions to the nearest half:
1. 1/9
2. 14/27
For the next 2 estimate the sum or difference:
1. 4/5 + 18/20
2. 24 1/10 - 5 9/11

Answer 1

Rounding to the nearest "half" is harder to explain than rounding to a power of 10: nearest one, tenths, hundreth, etc.
In the latter case you change the fraction to a decimal, then use the "round up if next digit is 5 or more"

To explain what rounding is, you need to draw a number line, plot the points you want to round to, e.g. every 1/2, then plot the fraction, then show the "rounded" fraction is the 1/2 point closest to that fraction.

Answer 2

Yes, the number line is a great tool.
Rounding to halves is to consider every half as a unit, then rounding to the (half) unit is the same process as rounding to an integer.

In practice, we would multiply the number by two, round to the nearest integer, and divide the number by two.
For example, rounding 2/5 to nearest half would be rounding 4/5 to nearest integer = 1, divide by two to get 1/2.

Or rounding 8.667 to nearest half would round 2*8.667=17.334 to 17. Divide by two to get 8.5.

It's nice to see homeschool parents taking the responsibility seriously. Feel free to return if there's anything else we could do.

Answer 3

:) thank you both

Answer 4

You're welcome! :)