Have you ever measured something? Was the measurement perfect or was it too small?
Well, if you were working on a construction site, you would be doing a lot of measuring so rounding up or down if things weren't perfect would be very important. These part measurements are also fractions, just like you have learned about in other Concepts.
Think about how you would round: three - fourths, one - sixth or five - tenths as you work through this Concept.
In this Concept, you will learn how to round a fraction to the nearest half.
We use fractions in everyday life all the time. Remember that when we talk about a fraction, we are talking about a part of a whole. Often times, we need to use an exact fraction, but sometimes, we can use an estimate. If you think back to our earlier work on estimation, you will remember that an estimate is an approximate value that makes sense or is reasonable given the problem.
What fraction does this picture represent?
We call this rounding to the nearest half.
How do we round to the nearest half?
To round a fraction to the nearest half, we need to think in terms of halves. We often think in terms of wholes, so this is definitely a change in our thinking. There are three main values to round to when we round a fraction to the nearest half.
Our answer is 1.
Try a few of these on your own. Round each fraction to the nearest half.
Now let's go back and think about those measurements from the very beginning of the Concept.
Think about how you would round: three - fourths, one - sixth or five - tenths as you work through this Concept. We can round three - fourths to 1. We can round one - sixth down to 0. We can round five - tenths to one - half.
Here are the vocabulary words in this Concept.
a part of a whole written with a fraction bar, a numerator and a denominator.
to find an approximate answer that is reasonable and makes sense given the problem.
Here is one for you to try on your own.
Here are videos for review.
Estimating with fractions - This video is a secondary skill to rounding fractions. It involves estimating with fractions.
Directions: Round each fraction to the nearest half.