Fractions 5th grade help, please explain how to get the answer

So we are given the mixed fraction 5 and 1/4 and we are asked to subtract 7/8 each time.

We can make 5 and 1/4 into the improper fraction 21/4.

Now that we have this, we want to create a common denominator to make it easier to subtract. We can easily get the common denominator of 8 by multiplying both sides of the fraction by two.

21 * 2/4 * 2 = 42/8.

Our first term is 42/8, as we start out with it.

Now we can subtract to figure out the rest.

Supposing we don’t include 42/8 as the first term, the next terms would be:

35/8, 28/8, 21/8, 14/8.

Notice how we subtract 7/8 each time. As we have a common denominator, we can ignore the 8 on each fraction and focus on the numerator. We simply subtract 7 from 42 each time.

Hope this helps.