Costumes are being made for the high school musical. The table at the right shows the amount of fabric needed for the costumes of the male and female leads. Alice uses the expression \(7\frac{3}{8}+1\frac{5}{8}+2\frac{4}{8}\)  to find the total amount of fabric needed for the costume of the female lead. To find the value of the expression  using mental math, Alice used the properties of addition.

\(\begin{align}
7\frac{3}{8}+1\frac{5}{8}+2\frac{4}{8}&=\left(7\frac{3}{8}+1\frac{5}{8}\right)+2\frac{4}{8}
\end{align}\)

Alice added 7 + 1 and was able to quickly add \(\frac{3}{8}\) and \(\frac{5}{8}\) to the sum of 8 to get 9. She added \(2\frac{4}{8}\) to 9, so her answer was \(11\frac{4}{8}\).
So, the amount of fabric needed for the costume of the female lead actor is \(11\frac{4}{8}\) yards.

Write a new problem using the information for the costume for the male lead actor.

          Pose a Problem              Solve your problem. Check your solution.

Identify Relationships Explain how using the properties of addition makes both problems easier to solve.