Question

Lindy is having a bake sale. She has 48 chocolate chip cookies to put in bags. How many bags can she fill if she puts the same number in each bag and uses them all? Find all the possibilities. Explain your reasoning.

Answer 1

Well how many bags? I would say find the factors of 48. You could do four bags with twelve cookies each. Or six bags with eight cookies each.

Answer 2

1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 12, 16, 24, 48.
The number of bags she can make are shown in the table:Number of CC cookies in each bag12346812162448Number of bags48241612864321Since the number of cookies that goes in a bag is a factor of the total number of cookies, all the factors of 48 are listed in the first row of the table. Each column corresponds to a situation where the 48 cookies are divided equally among some bags, and the product of the numbers in each column is 48. The number of bags is also a factor of the total number of cookies.