[johnsju]

I'm starting division next week, and was wondering if anybody had any great ideas for starting out. It's also likely that I'll be observed next week, so any ideas involving manipulatives and/or technology would be greatly appreciated Thanks for the help...happy weekend!

[Risa]

Division-ProTeacher collection
http://www.proteacher.org/c/216_Divi..._teaching.html

[NCteacher]

The Maharaja's Tasks is a must! It is a kinisthetic way of teaching beginning division. If you google it, I am sure that you can find the program for purchase. Here is one of the initial activities:

1.) Rope off an area of your room and post a sign "Holding Pen"

2.) Give the kids one minute to think of an animal that lives in the jungle.
3.) Have them start moving silently around the room the way their animal would move.

4.) You call out, "Make groups of ___"

5.) The kids must for a group of that number, and immediately sit down.

6.)The kids who can't be in a group go into the holding pen as the "remainder"

7.) On chart paper, record the division problem as a number sentence and as ___ groups of ____ with a remainder of ____.

8.) Continue playing- it is a great time to get the kids to discover that the remainder can never be bigger than or equal to the number of "animals" in a group.

9.) As a challenge, you can tell the kids how many groups you want- they have to figure out how many kids are in each group.

I have used this for 5 years to teach division and it is fantastic. You can make it as difficult or simple as you want. It looks great for an observation, since you are addressing a couple of different learning styles and 100% of the kids will be engaged and learning. Good luck!

[caroleu]

Refresh my memory for the long division acronym Does McDonald's Serve Cheese Burgers?: It's Divide, Multiply, Subtract, ___, ___. I haven't taught this in five years.

[Risa]

We did a lot of preliminary division with physical movement, such as the previously suggested "Majaraja's Task" and then with manipulatives such as Cuisnenaire Rods (cubes and sticks). Once we started recording (writing) we used grid paper to keep all columns correctly aligned. After that, it was a matter of repeating the procedures with lots of examples. (I like the idea of giving the students a page with each step where they use a marker to indicate which step they are using as they work the problem. I think I'll use that for next year.)

My students added their own extensions to the basic mnemonic:
Does-------->Divide
McDonald's-->Multiply
Serve------->Subtract
Cheese----->Compare (Difference to Divisor-must be smaller)
Burgers----->Bring Down
(Repeat DMSCB until there are no digits to bring down, then move on to the R, and finally, C.)
Really------->Remainder
Cooked?----->Check (by multiplying)

[momlady]

I give my kids egg cartons and small plastic cubes. Before I introduce division I give my students multiplication problems with one of the factors missing. They are strong with their basic multiplication facts and they almost always know the answer. I ask them how they got the answer and they tell me they knew the multiplication fact. Then I explain that actually what they did was division. My students really respond well to this method of learning multiplication. I give them a number of plastic cubes, then tell them to put the group of cubes into a number of smaller groups and I write the equation on the board. When they have the right answer, I write it on the board.

[johnsju]

Thanks so much for all these great ideas! Instead of dreading teaching division, I'm actually looking forward to this week. Thanks again for your help...I owe all of you one