Prime and Composite Numbers

As I continue my trek I am a bit daunted by the mass amounts of information that is being thrown at me. As I go on I need to take this trek one step at a time. Sometimes I try to run when I need to jog and at other times I need to walk instead of jog. I need some form of math gator aid or some nice cold water. That drink comes in the form of guidance from my brother in law who is a middle school math teacher. When I am tired and sweaty and I cannot stand my high heels anymore I call him when I am about to fall. He won’t let me give up and I am so close to the finish line! As we take this trek we need to make sure that we have an energy source, someone that is there for us to rejuvenate us and help keep our spirits up. This is what we need to keep in mind when we are teachers. We need to be there for our students we need to be the proverbial drink of cold water and make this trek less painful and daunting. We need to be our student’s biggest fans; we need to cheer them on!

As I went though these chapters I found myself being slowed down to a crawl with all of the information so this is why I wanted to focus on Prime and Composite Numbers. If we can fully understand this we can move onto more complex activities such as prime factorization, Greatest common factor, and least common multiple.

Let’s start by defining prime and composite number;

Prime Number:  can be divided evenly only by 1 or itself, and it must be a whole number greater than 1.

Composite Number: can be divided evenly by numbers other than 1 or itself.

Remember: The number 1 is not a prime number and it is not a composite number!

                              

Watch this video and then take a peek at the Composite number list and then the Prime number list. Then head to AAA Math and do some practice problems and see how well you can do with finding prime and composite numbers.

After you have mastered this take a peek and my fellow Trekkers blog on factorization!