You've learned to use coins in multiplication number family problems. Now you're ready to solve word problems about coins. These are the kinds of problems you deal with every time you use money to buy things.
Let's solve this one:
You have dimes. You have 60 cents in all. How many dimes do you have?
The first sentence says that you have dimes. So what's the first lesser (smaller) number in the family? Dimes are worth 10 cents, so 10 is the first lesser number. Use D for the number of dimes.
The next sentence says that you have 60 cents. This is the greatest (larger) number. Do you write 60 for the number of dimes or the number of cents? It's the number of cents. Now you can figure out the answer. What's the missing number? The missing lesser number is 6. You have 6 dimes.
Try this next problem:
You have nickels. If you have 9 nickels, how many cents do you have?
The first sentence says that you have nickels. So what's the first lesser number? Nickels are worth 5 cents, so 5 is the first lesser number. You have 9 nickels. Write 9 for the number of nickels. You can now figure out the missing greatest number. Multiplying 5 times 9 equals 45 (5 × 9 = 45). You have 45 cents.
Now, let's try this last money problem:
Oliver lost 16 nickels because he had a hole in his pocket. How many cents did he lose?
You know that the lesser numbers are 5 and 16. Now multiply them together and you get the greatest number. The number expression for this is 5 × 16. You did it! The product, or answer, equals 80 cents!
