In this lesson, the student is introduced to the concept of an improper fraction. An improper fraction is a fraction where the numerator is larger than the denominator.
At first, this seems unusual to many students because fractions such as 1/2 and 3/4 have a numerator that is always smaller than the denominator. Compare this to an improper fraction such as 5/2 where the numerator is larger than the denominator.
What does 5/2 actually represent? In this lesson, we discuss this in depth. The short answer is that an improper fraction represents when you have something greater than one. For instance, the improper fraction 3/2 represents One and a Half candybars.
In contrast, proper fractions such as 1/2 represent quantities that are always less than one. We spend a great amount of time ensuring that the student truly understands what an improper fraction repsents so that when we perform calculations with improper fractions the concept doesn't seem foreign.
Science Experiment DVDs
