The Unit Division Board

Materials

  • Unit Division Board.
  • 9 green skittles.
  • Bead material in proper colour of categories.
  • Printed division slips.

Direct Aim

To familiarise the child with the various ways in which the numbers may be divided.

Age of Interest

6 years.

Preparation

Before being presented with this, the child must have done short division in the decimal system and the stamp game. It is not essential that he should have done long division.

Presentation

  1. Take 14 beads: “Let’s divide them by 2′ Place 2 of the green skittles in the first two holes at the top of the board. Start giving the beads one by one to each skittle, placing them in the holes.
  2. ‘Now how many did each skittle get? We don’t really have to count the number, as the number at the side tells us that there are 7. So14÷2=7.
  3. Work with a few more, numbers at random.
  4. ‘Take the number 24. Let’s see in how many ways we can divide 24 so that the answer is always 9 or less, and that the remainder is always less than the divisor’
  5. Put out 9 green skittles.
  6. Start dividing out the 24 beads from the lid.
  7. Leave the remainder lower down.
  8. Answer:24÷9=2,remainder 6.
  9. ‘We’ll divide by 8’.
  10. Remove one skittle and its share.
  11. Put the rest of the beads under the first two rows.
  12. So we have 24÷8=3.
  13. Continue on till you read 24÷2=9 remainder 6.
  14. The remainder is larger than the divisor, so we do not want that.
  15. Final result: 24÷9=2 rem. 6
  16. 24÷8=3
  17. 24÷7=3 rem. 3
  18. 24÷6=4
  19. 24÷5=4rem.4
  20. 24÷4=6
  21. 24÷3=8
  22. Now we are really only interested in the numbers that have no remainder, so we’ll underline them in red. They are the only ones that we need to learn.
  23. The child writes the sums as he goes along on the printed division slips or in his copy-book.
  24. When the children have worked on the division tables at random, they then work systematically with 81 beads, starting to divide first with 9, then 8, and so on, and seeing in how many ways each number can be divided so that the answer is 9 or less, with the remainder never as great as the divisor.

The Unit Division Board