Incorporate visual components into your teaching to help students learn division. Assign a different color to each step of the division process (divide, multiply, subtract, bring down) and ask students to use that color when performing that step. Students may use colored pencils for the steps or simply highlight each step in a different color after completing it. Give students tangible materials to help them divide and actually see the process happening. For example, for the problem 25 divided by 5, you could give students 25 pieces of candy or little squares of paper and have them determine how many groups of 5 they can make using those items.
Many online games help explain division to students in a way that does not feel like learning. Some students may be more responsive to the skill if they think of it in terms of a skill needed to win a game. Fun4theBrain’s “Alien Munchtime” has students answer division problems to determine which entree each alien wants for lunch. Arcademic Skill Builders offers four different games where students may race against their peers or a computer to answer division questions and win a race, a derby or a game of tug-of-war. Cool Math Games 4 Kids has “The Number Monster” which simply asks students to solve a division problem and provides them with the right answer if they get it wrong.
Help students understand the importance of division by including real-world scenarios. Practice dividing a pie or a package of cookies so that everyone in the class receives an equal amount. Determine how many quarters go into a roll by dividing $10 by 25 cents. Pretend the school needs to raise a certain amount of money to take a special field trip and use division to determine how many items each student must sell in a fundraiser or how much each student must contribute in order to make the field trip happen.
Introduce students to different ways to write division problems, such as 25 divided by 5 and 5/25. Practice solving division problems on graph paper, writing each number in a different box to help keep the steps separate. Instead of writing out a division problem using numbers, have each portion of the problem represented by tally marks on an index card. For example, 25 divided by 5 would be represented by an index card with 25 tally marks and an index card with five tally marks. Focus on group of numbers at a time, such as dividing by three one day, four the next and so on.