• Sign Up
  • Gallery

Academics Plus®, Inc. Consulting and Coaching

"Expanding Thoughts for Solutions"

  • About
    • Kenneth E. Benton, Ed.D.
    • Marilyn C. Benton, Ed.D.
  • A+50 Online Tutoring
    • Request a Tutor
    • Become a Tutor
    • Make a Payment
    • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Services
    • Who We Serve
    • Services We Provide
    • Faith Based Organizations
  • Blog
  • Contact
You are here: Home / Blog / Lesson Series – Greatest Common Factor

December 13, 2010

Lesson Series – Greatest Common Factor

In order to help parents reinforce ideas learned in school and in tutoring, Academics Plus, Inc. is offering a Lesson series on our blog that demonstrates basic concepts using items you can find around the house.

Greatest Common Factor

The greatest common factor of two numbers is the largest number that can be divided into both numbers evenly (also known as a factor of both numbers). Sound confusing? This simple exercise should help both you and your child understand the subject.

What you will need:

  • 2 Newspaper pages
  • A table
  • A pen/marker

Directions:

1. Clear out a space on your table and separate the newspaper pages.

2. Begin by finding the greatest common factor of 18 and 24. Write one of each of the following equations at the top of a newspaper page:


Academics Plus, Inc. - Greatest Common Factor

3. Ask your child to divide both of these numbers by a low prime number like two to fill in the equation and begin writing a factor tree. Factor trees will look like this:


Academics Plus, Inc. - Greatest Common Factor

4. Once your child has written the factor tree, ask him or her to find all the common numbers between each set of factors at the end of both factor trees as shown by the highlighted numbers above.

5. When your child has chosen the numbers, write one number from each pair and put a multiplication symbol between them. For example:


Academics Plus, Inc. - Greatest Common Factor

Then have your child multiply the numbers together (with larger numbers, it is likely that more than two factors will need to be multiplied together to get the GCF). The result is the greatest common factor.

6. Complete steps 1-5 with the following number sets:
12, 24
18, 27
56, 24

Reader Question: Can you think of another way to find the greatest common factor? Share it in the comments!

Tweet
.

Article by A Plus Admin / Blog

Search

Copyright © 2016-2020 · Academics Plus Inc. · Consulting and Coaching