This site focuses on the genre of problems in which successive fractional parts of a set are removed, and the size of the original set is determined from the final remainder. Four ways of solving such problems are illustrated and discussed.

This site focuses on the genre of problems in which successive fractional parts of a set are removed, and the size of the original set is determined from the final remainder. Four ways of solving such problems are illustrated and discussed. Students work in groups to solve the "mangoes problem" and the "sailors and coconuts problem" with an eye toward communicating and appreciating different approaches to solving the problems. This lesson plan was adapted from an article that appeared in the November-December 1994 issue of Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School. (author/sw)