Show students a basket of apples. Make sure there are enough apples in the basket to have two for each student in the class.
Tell students "there are x number of apples in the basket" and "x number of students in the class." Ask students to guess off the top of their heads how many apples each student will get.
Hand out the apples, one at a time, to each student in the class until each student has two apples. Ask students to call out how many apples each person has.
Explain to students that you have just divided the apples equally. Write a long division equation on the board to represent the division activity that just took place and tell students that instead of handing out the apples one by one, you can figure out the answer with long division.
Teach students a phrase such as "Does McDonald's Sell Cheese Burgers?" to remember the steps of long division (divide, multiply, subtract, check, bring down).
Place a sample long division problem on the board, such as 50 divided by 2, and model how to solve each step of the problem.
Show students how to complete the division step by seeing how many times the divisor goes into the first number of the dividend. For example, how many times 2 goes into 5 for the problem 50 divided by 2.
Model the multiplication step by multiplying how many times the divisor goes into the first number of the dividend by the divisor and placing that number below the first number of the divisor. For example, in the problem 50 divided by 2, the number 2 goes into the number 5 twice, so students will multiply 2 by 2 and place the number 4 under the 5 in the dividend.
Subtract the first number of the dividend from the number gained in the multiplication step to get the answer for the subtraction step. For example, 5 minus 4 equals 1.
Drag down the next number in the dividend and place it next to the number from the subtraction step. For example, students will bring down the 0 in the problem 50 divided by 2 and place it next to the one.
Repeat the steps with the new dividend to continue solving the problem. For example, in the problem 50 divided by 2, students will figure out that 2 goes into 10 5 times and place a 5 next to the 2 at the top. Students will multiply 2 by 5 to get 10 and will subtract 10 from the problem, to get a remainder of 0.
Share the answer to the problem with students. For example, students will learn that 50 divided by 2 is 25.
Model multiple problems for students, allowing them to give input, before having them practice on their own.