A $4 \frac{1}{2}$ foot long wire is being cut into smaller pieces that are $1 \frac{1}{4}$ feet long. What is the maximum number of smaller whole pieces of wire that can be cut from the original piece of wire?
A. 2
B. 3
C. 4
D. 5

Step 1 ：The problem is asking for the maximum number of smaller pieces of wire that can be cut from the original piece of wire. This is essentially a division problem where we divide the total length of the wire by the length of each smaller piece. However, since we are looking for whole pieces, we need to use integer division which rounds down to the nearest whole number.

Step 2 ：Let's denote the total length of the wire as \(total\_length = 4.5\) feet and the length of each smaller piece as \(small\_piece\_length = 1.25\) feet.

Step 3 ：We can calculate the maximum number of smaller pieces by dividing the total length by the length of each smaller piece, which gives us \(max\_pieces = \frac{total\_length}{small\_piece\_length} = \frac{4.5}{1.25} = 3.6\).

Step 4 ：Since we can't have a fraction of a piece of wire, we round down to the nearest whole number, which gives us \(max\_pieces = 3\).

Step 5 ：Final Answer: \(\boxed{3}\). The maximum number of smaller whole pieces of wire that can be cut from the original piece of wire is 3.