Week 2: Working with numbers

Introduction

In this week you will extend your work from Week 1 by looking at decimals again. You will also learn about powers (or exponentiation). When using all the mathematical operations you’ve studied so far, it is important to know what order to carry these out in, just like you would when making a piece of flat pack furniture. If you start in the wrong place, you may not end up with a correctly finished wardrobe, or correct answer. You will look at the correct order to carry out calculations, before turning again to problem-solving strategies.

After this study week, you should be able to:

• be able to round numbers
• be able to relate simple fractions to decimals
• use your calculator for the four operations of +, –, × and ÷
• use and understand powers
• carry out mathematical operations in the correct order
• appreciate the steps in solving a problem mathematically.