How To Use Formulae At KS2: A Beginner's Guide

Hi, I'm Felicity, and today I'm going to be talking to you about using formulas in algebra. Before we start, it's really important to notice the key difference between formulas and equations. Here's just a quick example of an equation. Here we have 4Y 9 29, and they're asking you to figure out the value of Y. But in a formula. You're simply given a formula and known values, and you just need to plug in these known values to figure out your answer using that formula. Formula. So in this example, we have a rectangle. We want to figure out the area of the rectangle. We know that this is equal to the length times the width. Now we know the value of these two variables. The length is 10 and the width is 2. So we know that the area is 10 times 2, which we know equals 20. And ensure that your pupils use the appropriate units when they're writing their answer. Let's have a look at another example. Here's a cuboid, and we have all the variables labeled as. So now we need to figure out the volume of this cuboid. The formula for this is the length times the value of the width times the value of the height. So the volume equals the length, which is six times by the width, which is two, times by the height, which is three. And we know that this is 36. So the volume, if we add in the units, is 36cm cubed. And that's how we use formulas in algebra.