To understand the concept of division and to relate what we do in school with the outside world children did a hands-on activity.  Each group was given five empty boxes of Smarties.  On a given plate they were given some Smarties as well.  Students had to find out how many boxes they needed.

During other lessons students played various games on the interactive whiteboard.  For example:  Sharing fruit between two children.

Whilst doing these activities children used known number facts to carry out simple division and halving.  Students also understood the operation of division as repeated addition.  Furthermore children also associated division as equal sharing.

Submitted by Ms Miranda Cauchi, Yr 3.1

One of our Mathematics topics was division (as grouping). The children participated in group work, during which each group was given a different amount of bottle caps. They had to count how many bottle caps in all and group them according to the instructions given. For instance, one group was given 25 bottle caps and they were instructed to group them into groups of 5. Then, they had to count how many groups were created and write the corresponding division sum i.e. 25 / (division by) 5 = 5. At the end of the lesson, each group presented their work to the rest of the class. It was a fun hands on activity that helped the students understand the concept of division as grouping.

On another day, the students were engaged in a similar activity however, this time, the group members chose the amount of bottle caps themselves. They also chose into how many groups they were going to divide the bottle caps themselves. They discussed this as a team, got the number of bottle caps needed, grouped them accordingly and wrote down the corresponding division sum.

Finally, to make sure that the students understood the concept of division well, they participated in 4 different activities to revise this topic.  All 4 activities were going on at the same time, as the students then, rotated activities after a specified time. The activities were as follows:

• Beebot game – Moving the Beebot on a division sum, working it out and checking the answer.
• Board game – Throwing a dice and uncovering a part of the board game with that number. Working out the division sum uncovered and checking the answer overleaf.
• Matching game – Matching cards with division sums to their correct answers.
• Handout – as consolidation of the topic.

Submitted by Ms Sharon Calleja, Yr 3.1 Teacher