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Dr. Decimal: Removing Decimals from the Divisor

Sep 27, 2011 | 66 comments

In math, we’ve been learning all about decimals. We’ve learned how to add and subtract with decimals, multiply decimals, and divide decimals. When learning to divide, we did plenty of problems with decimals in the dividend. We learned that when there is a decimal in the dividend, you just need to make sure your decimals line-up like in the problem below.

However, we eventually ended up running into some problems that also had decimals in the divisor. We learned that to solve these problems, we had to make our divisor a whole number. In order to do that, we have to move our decimal over one space. If we move our decimal over one space in our divisor, we also have to move our decimal over one space in the dividend to even things out.

Once we’ve made our divisor a whole number, now we’re able to solve the division problem. Having these decimals in the divisor is a problem that has to be taken care of. If seen, they need to be removed. Luckily, we had Dr. Decimal and Nurse Negative from the Avery County Medical Center who put together a public service announcement to remind us about how to deal with those pesky decimals, which can be seen at the top of this post.