Sure! A proportional relationship is when two things change together in a special way: if one thing gets bigger, the other thing gets bigger by the same amount, and if one thing gets smaller, the other one does too. You can think of it like a recipe!
Here’s an example: Imagine you have a recipe for cookies. If the recipe says that for every 2 cups of flour you use, you need 1 cup of sugar, that's a proportional relationship.
So, if you decide to make more cookies and use 4 cups of flour, you would need 2 cups of sugar because:
- 2 cups of flour : 1 cup of sugar
- 4 cups of flour : 2 cups of sugar
If you used 6 cups of flour, you would need 3 cups of sugar. The amount of sugar is always half of the amount of flour.
In this way, no matter how much flour you use, the amount of sugar will always be in the same proportion to the flour. That’s what we mean by a proportional relationship!