Weeks 4, 5, & 6 – Making Sense of Division
Making Sense of Division
1. Review Game: Multiplication Bingo
This game by Marilyn Burns has a clever twist. Students are allowed to create their own bingo boards, given that they can make a bingo by eliminating the products of 2 dice that will be rolled. Not only are they practicing multiplication facts, but by the 2nd or 3rd round, they are quickly avoiding primes!
Additional lessons coming soon
2. Understanding Division: Back to Base 5
In our experience, students resist learning long division conceptually – either because they’ve already memorized and drilled the algorithm, or because they’ve tried and failed to memorize the algorithm. So we tried teaching it in another base instead. There’s no room for algorithms – they have to use blocks and place value concepts!
Day 1 Slides: Division in Base Five
This online file allows students to divide by exchanging and creating equal groups. (Similar to Lesson 9 in Trimester 2, Week 8) Students can either record their answers as they work, or submit the Google doc.
There are blocks available for base 5, but these online blocks work fine.
On Day 2, we move towards mental math. Can students SEE the blocks move in their heads? The process is the same, but the columns are now presented like a long division problem.
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3. Division: Transferring to the Abstract
These worksheets are editable – you can re-create more of them for individual students who need more time to work with this concept. The main idea is that base 10 works just like base five: you have to exchange blocks in order to pass them out fairly.