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How do you divide?

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What does 15 梅 3 mean?

What mathematics do we need to be able to solve this problem?

This sign 梅 means divide.

There are two ways to divide:

  • sharing
  • grouping
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Sharing

Sharing can look like this.

Here are 15 counters. Can you share the counters equally onto three plates?

15 counters.

How many counters are there on each plate?

3 groups of counters.

15 counters shared on to 3 plates makes 5. Or you could write:

15 梅 3 = 5

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Grouping

Grouping looks like this.

Here are 15 counters.

15 counters.

How many groups of 3 are there hiding in 15?

5 groups of counters.

15 梅 3 = 5

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Top Tip

Top tip

Sharing and grouping are ways of solving a division problem.

Sharing is a good method when the numbers are quite small.

Grouping is a good method when the numbers start to get bigger.

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Example 1

Let鈥檚 look at dividing by 5 by grouping.

What is 30 梅 5?

I need 30 objects and I need to put them into groups of 5.

The answer is the number of equal groups you have after grouping all your objects.

Here are 30 cubes.

30 cubes.

How many groups of 5 are there?

6 groups of cubes.

There are 6 equal groups of 5. So:

30 梅 5 = 6

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Example 2

What is the answer to 45 梅 5?

Look at the question.

  • How many things do you need?

  • How big do the groups need to be?

Here are 45 cubes.

45 blocks.

Here are the same 45 cubes put into equal groups of 5.

9 groups of blocks.

There are 9 groups. Therefore:

45 梅 5 = 9

Here is another way to solve division problems. Count on in equal groups of 5.

Put your hands out in front of you, palms facing up, like this.

Ten fingers.

Starting on the left with you thumb, count on in 5s until you reach 35.

35 on fingers.

How many fingers did you use?

There are 7 groups of 5 in 35. So:

35 梅 5 = 7

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Activities

Activity 1

A boy thinking

Using your fingers and counting on in 5s, solve these division problems.

  • 20 梅 5 =
  • 25 梅 5 =
  • 50 梅 5 =
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Quiz

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More on Multiplying and dividing

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