We will be studying percents and their uses in everyday situations. Your child should begin finding examples of percents in newspapers and magazines, on food packages, on clothing labels, and so on, and bring them into class. Students' collections will be used to illustrate a variety of percent applications.

As we study percents, your child will learn equivalent values for percents, fractions, and decimals. for example, 50% is equivalent to the fraction 1/2 and to the decimal 0.5 The class will develop the understanding that percent always refers to a part out of 100. converting "easy" fractions, such as 1/2, 1/3, 1/10, and 3/4 to decimal and percent equivalents should become automatic for your child. Such fractions are common in percent situations and are helpful with "more difficult" fractions, decimals and percents. We will use a calculator to convert fractions to percents and will learn how to use the percent key to calculate discounts, sale prices, and percents of discount.

Finally, we will begin to apply the multiplication and division algorithms to problems that contain decimals. Students solve the problems as if the numbers were whole numbers. Then they estimate the answers to help them locate the decimal point in the exact answer. 

Activities