# Expanding and Reducing Fractions

Two things you might be asked to do are expand and reduce (or simplify) fractions. Expanding a fraction
means making it “bigger” while reducing a fraction means making it “smaller.”

## Expanding Fractions

Expanding fractions means making them “bigger.” For example, let’s say you ate 3/8
of that pizza, but your friend wanted to know how many sixteenths you ate. You would
have to expand 3/8 in order to give him an answer. Expanding a fraction does NOT
change how much you have (or ate), it just changes the way you are telling the person
what you ate. You would expand the fraction like this:

Look at the denominators. What can you multiply 8 by to get to 16? Think of your
8 times tables. 8 times what gives you 16? Well, we know that 8 x 2 = 16. That means
that we are expanding the fraction by 2. You already have the denominator expanded,
which means you still have to expand the top. To do this, you take the same number
you used for the bottom multiplication (in this case, 2) and multiply that number
by the top number (the numerator). It would say: 3 x 2 = ? What is 3 x 2? We know
that the answer to this question is 6, so 6 is now our new numerator. When we put
this altogether, we get 6/16, so we know that 3/8 expanded is 6/16. Then, you can
tell your friend you ate 6/16 of the pizza. It’s the same as what you had originally
counted, 3/8, but it’s a different way of telling him.

Let me show you one more time. This time, I’m going to give you the fraction, and
the number we’re expanding by, and you’ll get the new fraction on your own.

Expand 3/4 by 5.

Think: expand the numerator (top number). 3 x 5 = ? We know that 3 x 5 = 15, so
our new numerator is 15. Next, expand the denominator. 4 x 5 = ? We know that 4
x 5 = 20, so 20 is our new denominator. So, our entire expanded fraction is 15/20.
15/20 still means the same as 3/4, it’s just a different way of writing it.

## Reducing (Simplifying) Fractions

Now we’ll talk about reducing fractions. Reducing fractions (also known as simplifying
fractions) is the opposite of expanding them. Sometimes we see really big fractions
that can be written (or said) in an easier way. For example, you wouldn’t tell someone
that you ate 75/200 of a pizza, you would want to say it more simply so that he
or she can understand you. In order to do this, you would need to reduce (simplify)
the fraction. There are two different ways to do this, I will show you both of them.

The first way is by trying to figure out the biggest number that divides into both
the numerator and denominator of your fraction. I’m going to use 5/20 for my example.
I want to think of a number that I can divide into both 5 and 20. I can put 5 into
both 5 and 20. Then, I take the number I thought of (5) and divide the numerator
and denominator by this number. In this example, 5 ÷ 5 = 1, and 20 ÷ 5 = 4. So now,
my new numerator is 1 and my new denominator is 4, making my fraction 1/4.

It would look like this:

Now I’ll show you the second way. For the second way, you need to list the prime factors
of each number. In this case, the prime factors of 5 are 1 and 5. The prime factors
of 20 are 2 x 2 x 5. You would put these where they belong on the parts of the fraction
bar, so 1 x 5 would go on top (where the numerator goes) and 2 x 2 x 5 would go
on the bottom (where the denominator goes). It would look like this:

Now you would look for any common factors between the two numbers. In this example,
5 is the common factor, so we would cross out the 5 on both the top and bottom.

Now you would look at the numbers you have left, 1 on the top, and 2 x 2 on the
bottom. You would multiply the 2 x 2 back together to get 4. Then, you’re done!