Divide decimals by whole numbers word problems

A unit rate answers a single question, how much for one: one minute, one pound, one day, one melon. Every story here hides a decimal total divided by a whole count, so your child practices reading as much as computing.

Two stories add a rounding step. The drive gives 150.36 ÷ 135 = 1.11377…, which rounds to 1.1138 km per minute, and the apples give 50.98 ÷ 12 = 4.2483…, or $4.25 a pound. The other two divide exactly, to 12.076 miles a day and 24.56 pounds per watermelon.

The standards are 6.NS.B.3, dividing multi-digit decimals, and 6.RP.A.3.b, which names unit pricing and constant speed problems directly.

Read problem 2 together and pause before any pencil moves. "Are we sharing dollars among pounds, or pounds among dollars?" The price of one pound puts the dollars on top: 50.98 ÷ 12.

The likely slip comes in problem 1. Some kids divide 135 by 150.36 and end up with minutes per kilometer. Ask, "Kilometers in one minute, or minutes for one kilometer?" and let the question decide the order.

Problem 3 has a quieter trap. 241.52 ÷ 20 leaves a remainder after the hundredths, and the digits seem to run out. Ask, "What can you write after the 2 without changing the number?"

Grocery shelves carry a second, smaller price under the big one, the unit price. Let your child check it with a division and see whether the store rounded the same way.

On a car trip, read the miles and the minutes from the dashboard or a map app, and ask for the miles per minute to the nearest hundredth.

For a laugh about how every moment can become a problem, read Math Curse by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith, then invent one unit rate story together.

The effort worth praising here is the setup: "You decided what one share means before dividing." The next sheet divides by powers of ten, from 10 up to 1,000,000.