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Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Simplify Dividing

I get lots of questions throughout the year regarding multiplying and dividing.  Knowing multiplication and division facts are crucial in understanding word problems, fractions, and multi-step problems.  Many students find division more challenging than any other math concept.  Here are some tips that can help your student feel more confident when dividing:

-Practice with objects.  Use anything from pencils, to dice, to snacks, and decide how many each person in their family would get if you were to divide them equally.

-It is important to keep the columns of numbers straight when working on long division.  Use graph paper to stay organized when working with lots of numbers.  Once the problem is solved, have your student transfer it to their homework paper.  Staple the graph paper to the homework and I bet their teacher would love to see that extra hard work!

-Create a sentence for the steps to doing long division.  Like, "Does Mary Sing Bad?"  (divide, multiply, subtract, bring down).  This will help in remembering the steps when computing those long problems.

-Play games using decks of cards.  Old School games like WAR, can be turned into math games by simply multpilying or dividing the cards when turning thme over.

Make sure your student's practice time is being used to the best of its ability.  Make it fun and simple and you will soon see progress towards those right answers!

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