Jennifer wants to fill 3 punch bowls for a birthday party. Each punch bowl holds 4 1/2 quarts of punch. How much punch will Jennifer need?
3 * 4 1/2 = ____
To find out how much punch Jennifer will need, we need to multiply the number of punch bowls by the capacity of each punch bowl.
Jennifer has 3 punch bowls, and each punch bowl holds 4 1/2 quarts.
To multiply a whole number by a fraction, we need to convert the whole number into a fraction with a denominator of 1.
So, we can rewrite 3 as 3/1.
Now we can multiply the fractions: (3/1) * (4 1/2).
First, let's convert the mixed number 4 1/2 into an improper fraction.
The whole number part, 4, can be written as 4/1. And adding the fraction part gives us 4/1 + 1/2 = 9/2.
Now we can multiply the fractions: (3/1) * (9/2).
To multiply fractions, we multiply the numerators together and the denominators together: (3 * 9) / (1 * 2) = 27/2.
So, Jennifer will need 27/2 quarts of punch for the birthday party.