Make teaching division simple this school year with printable worksheets, digital activities, word problems, games and more to help students understand how to divide and apply division strategies to math problems. This teaching resource collection was created by the teachers on the Teach Starter team for elementary teachers, and each curriculum-aligned resource has been carefully reviewed and curated to ensure it's ready to use with your students! Explore long division activities, methods for explaining divisors and dividends and more, plus find differentiated resources to help you meet each student's needs!

Want to learn more about division, or looking for fresh ideas? Read on for a primer from our teacher team!

What Is Division? A Kid-Friendly Definition

Introducing division to your class? Let's start with a definition of this math operation that's easy for them to understand! Division is the math operation that separates a group of items or values into equal parts. The division symbols used to represent the division operation are the ÷ or / symbols. Students will also learn how to divide with a long division bracket. An example can help students understand this! Let's say you have 10 apples, and you want to share them equally between 2 people. To do this, you can divide 10 by 2, creating the following problem:

10 ÷ 2 = 5

Using division, you determine that you can give each person 5 apples.

Division Terms

Launching into division in your math class involves plenty of new vocabulary words for your students to learn! Here are some of the terms you will want to start off with.

Dividend

The number that is being divided in a division problem is called a dividend.

Divisor

The divisor is the number that divides the dividend in a division problem.

Quotient

The answer to a division problem is called the quotient. This number represents the number of equal parts.

Remainder

The remainder in a division problem is the amount left over after dividing a dividend by the divisor that cannot be divided evenly.

Fact Family

A fact family is a set of related multiplication and division equations using the same three numbers.

Divisibility Rules

If you have a division problem where you want to know if there will be a remainder or not, these general rules will help you determine if the divisor can be divided evenly into the dividend. Some rules of divisibility include even numbers being divisible by 2, dividends that end with 0 being divisible by 10, etc.

Repeated Subtraction

What does subtraction have to do with division? This division method involves repeatedly subtracting the divisor from the dividend until the remainder or zero is reached. a cartoon style of the division symbol with a smiling face

a cartoon style of the division symbol with a smiling face

A cartoon styling of the division symbol

What Is Long Division?

Long division is one type of division students learn in elementary school. This method is used to divide multi-digit numbers into smaller parts using a standard algorithm. Long division looks a lot like a little house with a roof! You write the big number you want to divide inside the house, and you place the number you want to divide it by on the outside. Then you use subtraction and multiplication to figure out the answer.

What Is Decimal Division?

Just as the name implies, decimal division is a way to divide numbers that have a decimal point. This math operation works just like regular division, but you have to move the decimal point over to make the numbers easier to work with. For example, if you want to divide 3.6 by 2, you would follow the steps of decimal division:

Move the decimal point in 3.6 over one spot to the right to make it 36.
Divide that by 2 to get 18.
Move the decimal point back over one spot to get the answer of 1.8.

What Is Area Model Division?

Area model division is a way to solve long division problems using partitioned boxes and multiplication. The process involves the following steps.

Draw a rectangle large enough to vertically divide and write numbers as you work through the problem.
Write the dividend on the inner left-hand side of the rectangle.
Put the divisor on the outside part of the rectangle.
Use your knowledge of multiplication to find a factor that can easily be multiplied by the outside number. This may be a multiple of 10 or 100. Write this number on top of the rectangle.
Multiply the two factors (the number on the top and the side of the rectangle). Subtract this from the number inside the rectangle.
Vertically partition the rectangle to create a new column. Write the difference from the first box in the newly created space. Repeat the process until you reach 0 or a remainder is left. Add the numbers that are on top of the rectangle to determine the quotient.

What Is Box Method Division?

Box method division is similar to how the standard algorithm works but is an alternative for students who may need a bit more structure when solving long division problems.

To solve problems with this model, you will draw a box and vertically divide it into the number of places present in the dividend. For example, if your dividend is 852, you would draw a box with 3 columns.
Place each digit from the dividend into its own column in your box. Place the divisor outside of the box on the left-hand side.
The process is very similar to the standard division steps (divide, multiply, subtract, bring down), but rather than students bringing down the number after subtracting, this number is carried over to the next column and placed before the digit in that box.
Once you are finished, the numbers on top of the box, put together, are the quotient (and any remainder you may have).

What Is Partial Quotient Division?

If the quotient is the answer to a division problem, what is partial quotient division? This is a handy way to divide numbers by breaking them down into smaller pieces. Here's how it works:

Set up the long division problem with your "division house" and draw a long vertical line down from the "roof" of the house. This will give you space to write down the number of times the divisor can "go into" the dividend.
Divide the big number by a smaller number that's easy to work with, such as a multiple of 10 or 100. Write this number on the right side of your vertical line.
Multiply it with your divisor and write it under the dividend.
Subtract the two numbers and repeat the process until you reach 0 or there is a remainder.
The total of the partial quotients along the right-hand side (and any remainder) is the final answer to your division problem!

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