Division of Fractions with Whole Numbers | Free Printable | Tips for How to Teach it
Division of Fractions with Whole Numbers
Teach the division of fractions with whole numbers with a FREE interactive notebook. This hands-on lesson will have your students cutting up fun food images to learn division.
It really surprised me. They were completely baffled, the problem had seemed simple, but the looks I was getting let me know I was wrong. It really wasn’t as easy as I had thought.
There are 4 rabbits, but you only have 3 carrots. How can you feed each of them the same amount of carrots?
Seeing their confused faces, and lack of knowing where to start…. I knew some intervention was needed. A little, hands-on type intervention.
Easy Ways to Teach Division
I created four-word problems involving food. Children relate to feeding themselves, and I’m sure they have figured out in the past how to share something when there wasn’t enough.
If you want to be even more hands-on, you could provide the actual cookies.
Give four students three cookies, and tell them they have to share them so that each kid gets the exact same amount. See what they come up with!!!
How to Teach Division
However you decide to do it, here are a few things you will want to remind your kiddos before you start.
- When you divide, your answer must be in equal parts.
- The dividend, or what is being divided up, is ALWAYS the first number in a division expression or equation. This will throw them if this is the first time seeing this. We are most comfortable seeing the first number of the expression as the larger number, not the smaller number.
Yes, you could simply teach them that the dividend becomes the numerator and the divisor becomes the denominator. What have you really taught them?
Do they understand why this happens? A month down the road are they going to remember what to do when there are more rabbits than carrots? Probably not.
*This post contains affiliate links. Many are from Amazon.com.
What you need
- glue
- scissors
- math journal or construction paper
How to Teach Division of Whole Numbers
You will teach the students how to divide whole numbers by fractions by simply working through the problems with the kiddos on the free download.
1. Start by creating an expression with the pictures. I have to divide up three hot dogs. That is my dividend, so I will cut out three hotdogs and write the number three on the first line of my expression.
2. Four people want a hotdog. That is my divisor, so I will glue on four people and write the number 4 is my equation.
3. Now I have 3 ÷ 4.
4. So now comes the fun ways to teach division. They will have to cut the hotdogs up so that everyone will get the same amount. The best way to do this is to cut each hot dog up into four parts because there are four people.
Write on the hotdog what fractional part each hot dog piece represents and then divide them up equally under the people. (Since we cut them into fourths, each piece represents 1/4)
5. Add up all the pieces under one person, and you have an answer. 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 = 3/4
So 3 divided by 4 equals three-fourths.
Algorithm for Division of Whole Numbers
At this point, I would highly recommend using the algorithm. If you have talked about changing remainders into decimals, then the students will quickly see how this works.
Now all you have to do is repeat these steps three more times, and you will be on your way to knocking out those baffled looks when there are more rabbits than carrots.
Division of Whole Numbers Worksheet
Below is the division of whole numbers worksheet printable. You can download the printable by clicking on the download button and then saving it to your device and printing it from there. If you would like more practice try this dividing fractions by fractions activity.
