Here’s a free downloadable worksheet that you can use in your home or classroom to teach division to your children or students. For each division problem, have your students solve the problem posed, and then use the answer they’ve come up with to draw the remaining parts necessary to complete the picture of the insect, arachnid or arthropod (you can even use this exercise as an opportunity to teach kids the difference between the different types of bugs).
The division problems in this exercise are not terribly difficult; you can use this exercise when first teaching second grade students how to divide numbers, or as a quick and fun activity for your third grade students to complete, possibly as a refresher of division at the beginning of third grade mathematics or at another point during the school term.
Teaching division to kids
When teaching division, you can have kids “count their way” to the answer they’re trying to reach. Here’s how:
- Introduce the division problem to your child; for example, what is 15 ÷ 3?
- Have your child count the first five numbers: “1, 2, 3, 4, 5”. When they’re done, have them hold up one finger.
- Next, have your child count the next five numbers: “6, 7, 8, 9, 10”, and then have them hold up a second finger.
- Count the final five numbers: “11, 12, 13, 14, 15”. Have your child hold up a third finger. Your child has now counted to 15.
- You’ve reached your target number of 15. Now you can have your child count the number of fingers he or she is holding up: 3.
- Explain to your child that they’ve counted three sets of the number 5 to reach 15; therefore, 15 ÷ 3 = 5.
This method can be used to solve all of the problems on this worksheet save for the last one; the last problem (with the centipede) will require a child’s re-starting the counting of fingers and remembering that he or she has already counted to 10, or perhaps beginning to count numbers on their toes!