Division Cookies and Humpday Highlight

Today, we jumped into division and the kids had a blast! Equal sets is typically the first division strategy I teach, so I thought I'd kick it off with food. I started by reading The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins. Have you ever read this book? It's super cute and a quick read. I remember reading this book when I was in elementary school. Basically, the mom makes 12 cookies for her son and daughter to share and they are happy because they each get 6. Then two more people come and they have to split the cookies by four, then six, and finally twelve.

After I read the book, I gave the students a recording booklet for our math interactive notebooks and a baggie with 24 pieces of store brand Cookie Crisp cereal. I told my students to take out twelve cookies from the bag and we worked through the booklet together, one row at a time, sorting our twelve cookies each time. Some students really struggled with this portion. They didn't understand (yet) how to figure out the number of groups to make.

When our booklets were done and the student had practiced with only twelve cookies, I had them take the remaining cookies out of their Baggie. I called out random division problems (with quotients less than 24) and had them sort their cookies to find the quotient. Eventually we eased into drawing circles with tallies instead of using the cookies and the students got to have their snack.

I will definitely be doing this lesson again next year, the students loved it and I really got to see who was struggling with the concepts. If you would like to try this activity with your students, just click on the pictures above for a free download. Let me know what you think!

Head over to Mrs. Stanford's Class for more Humpday Highlights!