Monday Math

Here are the images we worked on for prime factorization today.

The third picture was showing the smallest number you could make with the factors 2, 3, and 5. We figured out that if the factors were all prime numbers, when we multiply them together, we will get the smallest number possible. In the blue example, we knew that 14 was a composite number so we broke it down into its prime factors and then multiplied 2, 3 and 7 together to get 42 (the smallest number possible that has 2, 3 and 14 as its factors).

This math may seem a little strange or like something that you wouldn't use very often (or ever) but you will find it very helpful to understand this when we are working with fractions later in the year(and, more importantly, later in your life!).