Division for Little Learners!

This week we've been working on the concept of 'sharing equally' in maths.  As with all number concepts, there's lots of hands-on practise to be done to make sure each kidlet really understands how do divide objects into equal groups.  I wanted to share with you a very quick and easy idea that you might be able to use with your class! (There's a link to a freebie file towards the end of the post, too.) To start off I read the story of 'The Three Little Pigs'.  We then gave each child a piece of paper with three little piggy images, as well as one of a wheelbarrow.  I explained that the three pigs would all be working together to help build a house of sticks.  We then used matchsticks to solve division problems! :) I would choose the number of sticks for children to load into the wheelbarrow.  We used craft matchsticks.

We would count our sticks together to make sure everyone was starting with the correct number.  Then we'd share the sticks equally between three pigs.

We'd check to make sure each pig had the same number, and then one of my kidlets would give the answer in a sentence. E.g. Twelve sticks shared into three equal groups leaves four sticks in each group.

I even introduced the idea that not all shares can be equal. We tried to divide seven sticks between the three pigs and discovered that we would have one left over.

This activity is so easy to adapt depending on the resources you have in your classroom.  Last week we used little rubber ducks from the dollar store and divided them into two groups using blue paper for a pond, and next week we will use teddy counters and 'picnic rugs'.

If you'd like to do this with your class, I've uploaded the file to my TpT store as a freebie. :)