hi i'm rachel calif and today we're going to be learning how to teach sixth graders multiplying fractions so let's look at two thirds times one over v one v we multiply the top numbers two times one is two and then we just multiply the bottom numbers three times five is fifteen the answer is 215 now things get a little bit more complicated when we look at fractions that have to be reduced so let's look at 2/3 times one over eight we have two times one is two three times eight is twenty-four we get two over twenty-four but that's not the fraction in its simplest form so they have to then reduce it finding factors that go into two and twenty-four well two goes into both two and twenty-four so we divide them both by two and we get 1 over twelve the way that I prefer to do this problem looks like this 2/3 times 1/8 instead of just going right to multiplying we look for numbers that share the same common factor on the top and the bottom just like we did here but before we're multiplying so 2 & 8 both share the common factor of 2 so we can take 2 from both of them divide them both by 2 and we get 2 divided by 2 is 1 I just like to cross it off 8 divided by 2 is 4 now there's nothing else here that shares a common factor so now we can multiply 1 times 1 is 1 3 times 4 is 12 1 12 just like we got there but this way is simpler when you get bigger numbers you don't help them multiply them all together you can kind of reduce and then go takes less time I'm Rachel and thanks for learning with us today you