Rational Numbers

What this lesson covers

Rational Numbers is a 10-part Class 7 Mathematics lesson. Each part makes one point and then hands over to the next, so it can be read in a sitting or picked up again at the part you stopped on. It defines the idea in plain words before using it, works through an example step by step, breaks the topic into its parts and compares them, shows where it is used outside the textbook, names the mistakes that cost marks in an exam, ends with a recap of what to remember.

How it begins

A rational number is any number you can write as a fraction of two integers: p / q where p and q are integers and q ≠ 0Here is the idea most worth fixing early, because research keeps finding it is where students come unstuck: 3/4 is not "a 3 and a 4". It is one number: a single amount, with a single position on the number line.

The 10 parts

1. A rational number is ONE number
2. Find it on the number line
3. The same number wearing different clothes
4. The four operations
5. One problem, three ways
6. How to think when you are stuck
7. Where this shows up
8. The mistakes that cost marks
9. What to remember
10. Watch one worked through