orcishgamer: I know how to do the math, I'm trying to help her understand what boils down to an algebra
concept... while she's in 5th grade. I find this kind of annoying. Also I asked politely but
Google refused to do my job for me;)
5th. grade seems early, damn.
At that age, it wouldn't make sense to treat an equation philosophically, as in the mathematical representation of Yin and Yang concepts, but a good time to make sure she understands inverse relationships between the basic +,-,/, x.
For a 5th grader, best to make a joke of it, ie: 6x=18 x being any variable. x likes to fart in class, and everyone wants to get away from mister x (isolate the variable.) Since 6 is a factor of x, and wants to get away, the only way he can do so, is to divide himself out from each side, now mister x is alone. Reduce the 18/6, and you've found the mysterious gas passer, 3.
Just a goofy idea, but I used to use some strange tricks to get things into my sons' heads :-)
Edit to add: If more complex, order of operations and rules of integers should be addressed as well.