Terry owns a cereal factory. He makes individual sized cereal boxes that are 3 inches long, 5 inches tall, and 1 inch wide. He puts as many cereal boxes as he can into cargo boxes to transport them to schools. The cargo boxes are 12 inches long, 15 inches tall, and 6 inches wide. Terry then packs as many cargo boxes as he can into a crate that is 24 inches long, 15 inches tall and 12 inches wide. If Terry sells one box of cereal for 0.39, how much will he make from all the cereal boxes in one crate?

1 answer

Follow these steps to work out how to fit little boxes into a bigger box:

Work out how many boxes you can fit along the front of the box.

Divide the width of the big box by the width of one small box and write down the result. If you get a whole number answer, great! If not, round down, because even if your answer is 5.99, you can’t squeeze a sixth little box into the crate.

Work out how many boxes you can fit along the side of the box.

Divide the depth of the big box by the depth of the little box and write down the answer. Round down if you don’t have a whole number.

Work out how many boxes you can fit going up the box.

Divide the height of the big box by the height of the small box and write down the number. Round down if you need to.

Times the three numbers together.

That’s your answer!