Can anyone help with this Y6 maths question?

[AlwaysOneSock]

DD is Y6. I’m a bit maths blind. Can someone help me work out how to do this?

‘James has gone shopping with his birthday money. He spends 3/8 of it and gives half of what is left to his mum for safekeeping. He keeps the £15 that is left. How much birthday money did he have at the start?’

If someone could talk me through the method so I can share it with DD that would be most helpful. Thanks
She also has similar questions with % and they’re asking her to work out how much money at start. So washing machine £x with 20% off. How much was full price. Thanks

James has £30 left, half of which he gives to his mum, leaving him with £15.

He previously spent 3/8ths of the total.

So the £30 represents 5/8ths.

£30 ÷ 5 = 1/8th or £6.

£6 × 8 = £48.

The carpet
12m2 is worth 60% of the room. If you divide your 12 by 6 you’ll get what 10% is worth as 60% divided by 6 = 10%
12/6=2. If 2 is 10% you can work out 100% by multiplying it by 10 as 10% x 10 is 100%
2 x 10 =20 so the room is 20m
If the width is 5 you know it’s a number multiplied by 5 which makes the 20. The only result is 4 as 20/5=4
Make sense? I can definitely explain it to Year 6s but it’s hard to type 😀

Carpet question - What KTD27 said: find out what 10% is worth, then use that to find 100%.

Same principle for the washing machine:

1. Price with 20% off is £x
2. 20% off means 80% "on" (as 100% is the whole, 100-20=80), i.e. £x is 80% of the whole, pre-sale price that you are looking for
3. Find what 10% of the original price is by dividing £x by 8
4. Multiply this result by 10 to give 100%, which is the original price

Your DD may have been taught to do these sorts of questions using the (Singapore) Bar Method, where you draw and divide up equivalent rectangles, but that method is hard to describe in writing if you've not seen it before.

Apple,. I too used to draw things out as much as possible when teaching dd. I did not know about the Singapore bar method, so that sounds interesting.

Generally though, a bit of sketching out of say the carpet on graph paper or a tower which represents 80%, helps children visualise what is going on and increases their understanding.