PrepShorts · Teaching notes · Class 7 Mathematics · Chapter 8, Working with Fractions
This video could not be loaded. Reload the page to try again.
Sign in with Google9 min.
Keep your place in this chapter — sign in, it’s free.Sign in
These teaching notes are for members
What the video covers, what to say before it, where a class usually goes wrong, and what to set afterwards. An account is free, and it opens every chapter of every book.
What to assume they know
- A fraction of a fraction, and why the numerators and denominators multiply — multiplying two fractions
- Cancelling common factors before multiplying, not after — cancelling a shared factor above and below a bar
- Whole-number division, and the fact that it undoes multiplication
- A fraction times itself upside down giving 1, at least as something to notice
- Reading a sentence with a blank in it as an equation to solve
What they should be able to do
- Rewrite any division as a multiplication with one factor missing
- Name the dividend, the divisor and the quotient in a written division
- Find the number that multiplies a given fraction up to 1, by cancelling
- Solve a division whose divisor is a fraction and whose dividend is 1
- Extend that to a whole-number dividend by scaling the answer
- Extend it again to a fractional dividend
- Describe the two-move pattern the four worked divisions share
- Explain why the missing-factor reading survives a fractional divisor when the sharing-into-groups reading does not
Where it usually goes wrong
- "Dividing by a fraction needs a new rule." It needs no rule at all at this stage — it needs the question re-asked. The chapter deliberately reaches the answers before it states any formula, and the formula only arrives on p.189.
- "Division means sharing into equal groups, so a fractional divisor is meaningless." Sharing into 2/3 of a group is meaningless; the missing-factor question is not. Show the sharing reading breaking, and the missing-factor reading carrying straight through — that is why the chapter opens §8.2 with the restatement rather than with an example.
- "The blank is something you guess and then check." It is found, not guessed: you ask what would leave 1 behind after cancelling, and the fraction turned upside down is what does it.
- "12 ÷ 4 and 4 ÷ 12 are the same because both are divisions." The callout on p.186 labels which number is which for a reason, and the labels are not interchangeable.
- "To get 3 ÷ 2/3 you must start again from scratch." The chapter reuses the answer to 1 ÷ 2/3 and scales it. Make the reuse visible; it is the argument, not a shortcut.
- "A quotient must be smaller than the dividend." 3 ÷ 2/3 comes out as 9/2, which is larger than 3.
Questions to check understanding
- Rewrite a given division as a multiplication with a missing factor
- Label the dividend, divisor and quotient in a written division
- Find what multiplies a given fraction up to 1
- Divide a whole number by a fraction, showing the missing-factor step
- Divide a fraction by a fraction, showing the same step
- Choose, from four candidate expressions, the one that answers a word problem — the printed item on p.196 offers exactly this for a length of lace cut into quarter-metre pieces, for a half-metre of ribbon shared between eight badges, and for five kilograms of flour used a sixth at a time
- Explain why a division and its matching multiplication have the same content
Examples worth working on the board
- 12 ÷ 4 (Part I, §8.2, p.186). Inputs: 12 and 4. The chapter states the quotient 3, then immediately restates the problem as a multiplication with a blank: something times 4 must make 12. Checked against p.186: three speech-bubble labels sit around the printed line, Dividend over the 12, Divisor over the 4, Quotient under the 3.
- 1 ÷ 2/3 (Part I, §8.2, p.187). Inputs: 1 and 2/3. The chapter asks what multiplies 2/3 to give 1, observes that removing the 2 and the 3 would leave 1, and reads 3/2 off the page. Checked against p.187: the printed line shows 2/3 times a boxed 3/2, with the 2s and 3s struck through diagonally and an arrow from the box down to the word Answer.
- 3 ÷ 2/3 (Part I, §8.2, p.187). Inputs: 3 and 2/3. The chapter reuses the 3/2 just found and multiplies it by 3, reaching 9/2. The printed working boxes the whole of 3/2 × 3 and labels that the answer. This is the step that turns one special case into a method: solve for a product of 1, then scale.
- 1/5 ÷ 1/2 (Part I, §8.2, pp.187–188). Inputs: 1/5 and 1/2. The chapter works out that 2 multiplies 1/2 up to 1, then multiplies that 2 by 1/5, giving 2/5. Note the shape: the scaling factor is now itself a fraction, and the method does not notice.
- 2/3 ÷ 3/5 (Part I, §8.2, p.188). Inputs: 2/3 and 3/5. The chapter finds that 5/3 multiplies 3/5 up to 1, then multiplies 5/3 by 2/3, giving 10/9. This is the example the Discussion on the same page then generalises, so it is the one.
- The order the chapter builds them in. Dividend 1 with a fraction divisor; then a whole-number dividend; then a fractional dividend with a unit-fraction divisor; then both fractional. Each step changes exactly one thing. Keeping that order is most of the pedagogy of §8.2.
Figures to have open
- An equation line with an empty box that can be filled, cancelled through and then scaled — sections 3 to 9 are all this one object, and re-using it is what makes the shared pattern visible. Standard schematic.
- The three-role callout for a division, redrawn.
- Diagonal cancellation strokes that can be shown moving on, for section 6.
- No photograph, data table or textbook figure is required. §8.2's opening pages carry no diagram beyond the labelled callout.
Where this sits in the book
- NCERT Ganita Prakash, Class 7, Part I, printed Chapter 8 "Working with Fractions", §8.2 "Division of Fractions", pp.186–188 — the 12 ÷ 4 restatement with its labelled callout (p.186) and the four worked divisions (pp.187–188)
- Same part, §8.2, Discussion, pp.188–189, where these four are generalised — covered in Reciprocals, and Brahmagupta's rule for dividing fractions
- Same part, §8.1, p.183, for the cancelling this topic relies on
- Same part, Figure it Out, p.196, item 2, for the assessment shape