Question

Mr Sanchez has 16 feet of fencing to put around a rectangular garden. He wants the garden to have the greater possible area. How long should the sides of the garden be?

Answer 1

8 by 2=16. 8 times 2 is 16

Answer 2

Let's use some examples. So what can you make with 16? You can make 1 and 15, 2 and 14, etc.

How about trying 1 and 15 first?
1*15 = 15
What about 2 and 14, 3 and 13, and 4 and 12?
2*14 = 28
3*13 = 39
4*12 = 48.

Now we notice a pattern-- the numbers keep getting bigger, right? So the closer you get to the middle, the bigger the area will get. So if we divide 16 by 2, we get 8. Let's try 8 and 8.

8*8 = 64

That's larger than 48! Now let's try a couple more to make sure.

9*7 = 63
10*6 = 60
11*5 = 55

Next time, you'll know that with one of these problems, the biggest area would be the two numbers closest to each other you can get. Hope this helps! :)