Help my 3rd grader

Question

At the zoo, there were 3 times as many monkeys as lions. Tom counted a total of 24 monkeys and lions. How many monkeys were there?

Answer 1

Stephanie, I'd keep this simple for a 3rd grader, because most of them struggle to understand division at first. The important thing is to understand the ratio, that for every 3 monkeys there is 1 lion. Thus, show your child how to write two columns on a piece of paper, labeled "Lions" and "Monkeys" On the first line under the labels, put down 1 hatch mark under Lions, and 3 hatch marks under Monkeys. Do the same on each succeeding line until you have 24 hatch marks in all, then count the hatch marks in each column.