Mike had some pieces of wood to build a doghouse. He cut each piece in fourths. Then he had 24 pieces of wood. How many whole pieces of wood did Mike have to start with?
24/4 = ?
To solve this problem, let's work backwards. If Mike had 24 pieces of wood after cutting each piece into fourths, then we can assume that each original piece was divided into four equal parts.
So, we need to find out how many original pieces Mike had before cutting them. Since each original piece was divided into four equal parts, we can multiply the number of fourths by 4 to find the number of original pieces.
Let's do the math:
Number of original pieces = Number of fourths * 4
Number of original pieces = 24 * 4
Number of original pieces = 96
So, Mike had 96 whole pieces of wood to start with.