Max Maths, Year 6, Learn together, Multiplying and dividing by multiples of 10 (2)

In a practical mathematics scenario for Year 6 students, they are presented with a real-life problem involving a milk delivery truck tasked with distributing 800 cartons of milk evenly among 20 different shops. To solve this problem, students must use their division skills. The division can be visualised as a fraction, with the total number of cartons (800) as the numerator and the number of shops (20) as the denominator. A key strategy taught here is simplifying the division by cancelling out the common zeros in both the numerator and denominator before performing the calculation.

The simplification process involves reducing the fraction from 800/20 to 80/2 by removing the common zeros. After simplification, students can easily divide 80 by 2 to arrive at the final answer, which is 40 cartons of milk per shop. This example serves as a foundation for understanding how to divide larger numbers by multiples of 10 efficiently. Another example provided is dividing 12,000 by 300, where again students can cancel out the zeros to simplify the calculation to 120 divided by 3, resulting in the same quotient of 40. This method emphasises a crucial mathematical technique for simplifying division problems involving multiples of 10.