5th grade math question: 5 packages. 12 people. How much does each person get?

Taggy

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Am I reading too much into this? I was helping a kid with this earlier today and wondering if I'm overthinking it. 5 packages. 12 people. How much does each person get? Just 5/12 (5 twelfths) of a package each as the answer? Or should the kid be dividing 5 ÷ 12 to be more specific?

If this math is too juvenile for this web site, please direct me to one that can help.
 
Am I reading too much into this? I was helping a kid with this earlier today and wondering if I'm overthinking it. 5 packages. 12 people. How much does each person get? Just 5/12 (5 twelfths) of a package each as the answer? Or should the kid be dividing 5 ÷ 12 to be more specific?

If this math is too juvenile for this web site, please direct me to one that can help.
There's no real difference; 5 ÷ 12 = 5/12 expressed as a fraction, and 0.41666... as a decimal. These are equivalent.

Of course, if the packages are unbreakable, then there is no real answer. It all depends on details.

Can you show us the entire problem as given, and tell us what topic is being taught (e.g. fractions, decimals, or something else?

(By the way, this problem goes under the heading Arithmetic (or perhaps Pre-Algebra); its existence on the site shows that nothing is too juvenile!)
 
Am I reading too much into this? I was helping a kid with this earlier today and wondering if I'm overthinking it. 5 packages. 12 people. How much does each person get? Just 5/12 (5 twelfths) of a package each as the answer? Or should the kid be dividing 5 ÷ 12 to be more specific?

If this math is too juvenile for this web site, please direct me to one that can help.

If you're not sure of your answer, check it. If each child gets [imath]\frac{5}{12}[/imath] of a package, then the twelve children will, in total, get [imath]12\left(\frac{5}{12}\right)[/imath] packages, which is all [imath]5[/imath] [packages.

As for the "how" for the "proper" (that is, the expected) way to arrive at the answer, I cannot speak to that, because I can't see the class materials.
 
Am I reading too much into this? I was helping a kid with this earlier today and wondering if I'm overthinking it. 5 packages. 12 people. How much does each person get?

Okay, let's keep this simple.

If there are 5 packages and 12 people, then each person would get:

## Calculation:
* 5 packages
* 12 people
* 5 packages ÷ 12 people = 0.41666 packages per person

## Rounding
Since we can't give someone 0.41666 of a package, we need to round this down to the nearest whole number.

Therefore, each person would get:
**0 packages**

The key here is that with 5 packages and 12 people, there are not enough packages to give each person a full package. The fair distribution is 0 packages per person.
 
Since we can't give someone [5/12ths] of a package, we need to round this down to [zero packages]
Hi Zam. A lot of packages contain 12 items (dozen seems to be a popular packaging number). Some packages contain a multiple of 12 items (I've seen 144 items packaged). This exercise could be about that type of circumstance, where each person gets 5/12ths of a package. Another possibility is that the packages contain something like rice, and the contents are divided by weight. For example, we could measure about 2.1kg of rice per person (from a 5kg package), using a digital scale. :)
[imath]\;[/imath]
 
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