Question

Sean is helping his dad build a tiled walkway in their backyard. The walkway will be 60 feet long and 2 feet wide. The local hardware store sells tiles which are 2 by 2 feet and come in boxes of 6.

How many boxes of tiles do they need?

Answer 1

Length of the walkway that needs to be tiled = 60 feet
Width of the walkway that needs to be tiled = 2 feet.
Then
Area of the walkway that needs to be tiled = Length * Breadth
= 60 * 2 square feet
= 120 square feet
Now
Length of the tiles sold by the local store = 2 feet
Width of the tiles sold by the local store = 2 feet
Area covered by the tiles sold by the local store = 2 * 2 feet
= 4 square feet
Number of tiles in a box = 6
Then
Total area covered by a box of tile = (6 * 2) square feet
= 12 square feet
Then
The number of boxes required by Sean = (120/12)
= 10
So 10 boxes of tiles are needed by Sean and his father.

Answer 2

If the tiles are 2ft wide and the walkway is 2ft wide, then
the walkway is just a string of single tiles.

The walkway is 60ft long, so it needs

(60ft) / (2 ft/tile)) = 30 tiles.

They come in boxes of 6, so you need

(30 tiles) / (6 tiles/box) = 5 boxes.

Better get one more box, in case you break a few tiles.