W03 Math Lesson: Rounding and Decimals

Overview 

Task: Study and work through the following math lesson AND complete the Math Gathering Activity prior to Gathering.

Imagine one day you are at the store. You only have a little money in your pocket but need to buy several things. There may be more things on your list than you have the money to purchase and you want to get as much as you can. How can you quickly know if you have enough money for the items on your list before you get to the cash register? The skills you learn this week can help in a situation like this.

Last week you learned about addition and subtraction with positive and negative numbers. This week you will build on that foundation by learning about adding and subtracting decimals as well as rounding. Both are skills that you likely already use in your daily life without even realizing it. Decimal numbers are frequently used in things like measurements and many monetary systems. Rounding is an important way to make estimations when you don’t have a calculator or pen and paper nearby.

Making a Connection: Rounding

Did you know we can find examples of rounding in the scriptures? One example is found in Numbers chapter 1 when Moses was commanded to count all the men 20 years old and older who could go to war. The population counts in the scriptures are listed below. Do you think it is fair to say these numbers are rounded? What place value are most of them rounded to? Is there one that is different? Which tribe was counted most precisely?

Reuben: 46,500 Judah: 74,600 Ephraim: 40,500 Dan: 62,700
Simeon: 59,300 Issachar : 54,400 Manasseh: 32,200 Asher: 41,500
Gad: 45, 650 Zebulun: 57,400 Benjamin: 35,400 Naphtali: 53,400

 

Before we get into the math instruction, please complete the following Excel activity to be sure you are set up and familiar enough with Excel to use it in upcoming course activities.

PC Resource Center button Excel Exercise

Throughout this course, you will be completing assignments using Microsoft Excel. Before beginning your Math Lesson, take some time to learn or improve on your Excel skills. Complete the following activity:

Excel Exercise Links to an external site.

Be sure to review the Gathering Math Activity at the bottom of this lesson before attending the gathering this week.

Math Instruction and Practice

This math lesson is broken into several mini-lessons, each containing a lot of material. Be sure to start early in the week in case you need extra time to study and practice. To save you time and quickly discover which concepts you need more help with, you may first take the math exercises quiz. If you choose a wrong answer on any quiz question, you will receive feedback linking to lessons you can study to improve your skills in that area. You may take these quizzes as many times as you like until the due date in order to improve your score.

All the mini-lessons to help you improve your skills in this week's Math concepts are linked below, located in the PathwayConnect Resource Center Links to an external site.. If you still need help after going through the available materials, there are suggestions at the bottom of each lesson page to get more help.

Week 03 Math Gathering Activity

Each week you will have a math gathering activity which you will discuss with your gathering. Here is the question for this week’s gathering.

You are hurrying to be on time for your PathwayConnect gathering but need to stop at the market to buy milk, bread, rice, apples, tomatoes, onions and potatoes. If you have enough money, you would also like to buy your favorite candy. You have R$ 48.20 that you can spend. (R$ represents Brazilian Reais.)

Shopping List Cost of Item
Milk (1 liter regular) R$ 3.60
1 loaf of fresh bread R$ 6.50
Rice (1 kg) R$ 8.70
Apples (1 kg) R$ 6.10
Tomatoes (1/2 kg) R$ 2.60
Onion (2 kg) R$ 8.20
Potatoes (2 kg) R$ 8.90
Favorite Candy (?) R$ 2.60

Compare your estimate using front end rounding with the actual cost of everything on the list. Do you have enough money to buy the candy, assuming there aren’t any other expenses like taxes?

Once you are confident with the Math concepts on this page and have completed the Gathering Math Activity above, you may mark it complete and continue with the week's activities.