Tip: Remind them to stack the factors vertically on their Easy Breezy Math. This also helps them see the connections between multiplication and division.Īs the year goes on, they will move beyond their Easy Breezy Math as they develop their number sense and start to see patterns. We do this because my students really lack division number sense at the beginning of the year. We pull from those problems to help us solve the problem. We call this scaffold our “Easy Breezy Math.” Basically, we take the multiplication that we do know and write them off to the side. Partial quotients is a division strategy that uses chunking to repeatedly subtract groups of the divisor in a more efficient way.īut, I had to add in a scaffold for my students. Partial quotients was a game-changer for my students. Unfortunately, none of the division strategies or tips I share are going to be a magic pill, but they will make division accessible and conceptual for your students. In fact, as soon as I abandoned the standard algorithm as my go-to division strategy, my students began mastering division left and right. I can use division strategies that are not only developmentally appropriate but that also make sense for my students. However, and thankfully, I learned that it doesn’t have to be like that.
My students struggled big time with division because they lacked number sense and conceptual understanding. Do you dread teaching division each year? I used to be in that camp.