Hands-on Division {with freebies to share!}

Whew - thank goodness Monday is coming to an end! Today was a true Monday, in every sense of the word.
I wanted to stop in and share a lesson that I did with my students last week on division. I just introduced division at the beginning of the week, so we were working on multiplication and division fact families.

I found these amazing fact family cards on Teachers Pay Teachers here. The best part? They are FREE! I placed them in different areas around the room, and the students walked around the room filling out this fact family sheet. My students love moving around the room, and this was a great way to see who was "getting" the concept of multiplication and division fact families :)

After completing this activity, it was time for some hands-on division practice. I found some mini Halloween buckets at the dollar store, and knew they would be perfect for this activity :) I REEEEALLY wanted to buy candy corn to use, but I have some students in my room with allergies, so I went with Skittles. I gave each pair of students 3 mini buckets and a pile of Skittles. Then, I wrote one problem at a time on the board, and students would model the problem with their buckets and Skittles. After they figured out their answer, they would write the set of 4 fact families that went with their problem.

The students LOVED this activity, and it really helped some of them to model the division facts. At the end, I told the students to count the total number of Skittles. Then, I told them to divide that number into 2 of their buckets. Once they divided them evenly (I was able to insert a quick mini lesson on remainders), they were allowed to eat their share.
I was so happy with how this lesson went...all of the students were engaged, and since they were working with a partner, they were able to help each other.
Since we did this activity last week, I put the buckets into a math center for this week, along with a set of division flash cards. To their dismay, the students are dividing Unifix cubes instead of Skittles :) 

{{My friend Jennifer over at Teaching to Inspire in 5th has a brand new blog design that is GORGEOUS! To celebrate the new design, she is giving away a $50 TPT gift card! Head over to her blog for a chance to win!}}

Do you have any creative ideas for introducing and teaching division? Share them below - I'd love to hear your ideas!

Have a wonderful week! :)

XOXO