A ratio is the relationship between two amounts. A ratio can be expressed as a fraction.
What comes to mind is icing cupcakes. If I use one cup of vanilla cake icing to ice 4 cupcakes, and one cup of chocolate icing to ice 2 cup cakes, which cup cakes have more icing on them, the vanilla cupcakes or the chocolate cupcakes?
Clue:
1. The ratio for each type of icing to the number of cupcakes is:
1 cup vanilla icing: 4 cupcakes
1 cup chocolate icing: 2 cupcakes
2. The fraction representing each ration is:
1 cup vanilla icing/4 cupcakes
1 cup chocolate icing/2 cupcakes
Math: For any fraction, when the denominator number increases, the fraction value decreases. For example, 1/4 is less than 1/2.
This is because the quantity of the numerator is spread out over the size of the denominator.
So which cupcakes have a thinner layer of icing:
1. The vanilla which have 1 cup of icing spread over the surface of 4 cupcakes?
2. The chocolate which have 1 cup of icing spread over the surface of 2 cupcakes?
Answer: The chocolate cupcakes have more icing.
More Later, Janice
For more information about ratios and other math examples, see
