Yellow
Green
Blue
Red
Magenta
Remove
The Fewest Pieces Rule
The TIMS Candy Company prefers to fill its orders using the fewest number of packages. For example, instead of 10 skinnies, they prefer to use 1 flat. They call this the Fewest Pieces Rule.
When new workers are learning to put Chocos into the fewest packages, it helps them to think of base-ten pieces. The base-ten pieces represent the number of Chocos in an order. They remember the rule.
Fewest Pieces Rule: Always use the fewest base-ten pieces to represent a number.
To follow the Fewest Pieces Rule, they trade 10 pieces for the next larger piece whenever possible. For example, here are two ways to show 323 with number sentences to match. The picture on the right shows 323 using the fewest pieces.
Tom uses base-ten shorthand to take candy orders. Then he rewrites the order using the Fewest Pieces Rule.
Follow Tom's example. For each order in Questions 15–23, do the following:
- Write a number sentence to match the base-ten shorthand you see.
- Use base-ten shorthand to rewrite the order using the fewest pieces. You can use real base-ten pieces to find your answer, then write it using shorthand.
- Write a new number sentence to show the number of pieces ordered using the fewest pieces.
- 1 flat, 6 skinnies, 2 flats, 11 bits
- 3 skinnies, 2 flats, 5 bits
