📝 Practice Worksheets
🛠️ Related Tools
🔑 Key Concepts
- The least common multiple is the smallest number that two or more numbers both divide into evenly.
- LCM word problems often ask when two repeating events will happen at the same time again.
- One strategy is to list multiples of each number until you find the first match.
- After finding the common multiple, pay attention to the units in the question.
- Sometimes the answer must be converted, such as changing minutes into hours.
✏️ Worked Examples
🧠 Math Vocabulary
- Least common multiple (LCM): the smallest multiple that two or more numbers have in common.
- Multiple: the product of a number and a counting number.
- Same time: a clue that often signals an LCM problem.
- Every: a repeated interval word that often appears in multiple and LCM story problems.
- Repeating event: something that happens again and again at equal intervals.
💡 Main Idea
This lesson shows how the least common multiple can be used to solve real-world story problems involving repeated events. Students look for when two patterns line up again by listing multiples and finding the first value the numbers have in common. Problems like this strengthen both number sense and problem-solving with units.
📚 What You Should Already Know
Before watching this video, students should understand what multiples are and how to generate a list of multiples for a given number. It also helps if they can compare lists and identify common values.
🚀 What Comes Next
After solving LCM story problems, students can move into comparing LCM and GCF, using prime factorization to find the least common multiple, and applying these ideas to fractions, scheduling situations, and other repeated-pattern problems.
🧩 Embed This Video in Your LMS
Teachers can embed this YouTube video directly into Canvas, Google Classroom, Schoology, or another learning platform. Click below to show the embed code.