Dividing into groups

The last few lessons we have been looking at division in maths.

Firstly we counted how many students were in our class for the lesson which was 28. We then began the lesson with playing a game similar to musical chairs. We had to walk around the room and when Mrs Baldwin rang the bell she called out a number which was the size of the group we needed to make.

Every time we did this, we had to count the number of groups we made and the remaining people who were not part of the group. We started to record our results on the board.

We then looked at the results and discussed anything we noticed or patterns that were formed.

Our next task was to use 28 counters each, to work out an record the results for all the other group sizes that Mrs Baldwin could have called out. Check out some of our results below.

 

We noticed the relationship between dividing and multiplying. For example

3 groups of 9 with 1 left over = 28 students and 3×9 = 27   then   27+1 = 28

The final challenge was that last year Mrs Baldwin played this exact game. She remembered that:

  • when they made groups of 4 there were 2 children remaining, and
  • when they made groups of 5 there was 1 child remaining

However Mrs Baldwin could not remember how many children were in her class. We had to use counters and help find out the number of children played this game in her class.

We worked in groups  and quickly some of us discovered one answer straight away. Mrs Baldwin then told us that there could be more than one answer. As each group worked out an answer, they wrote it on the whiteboard and proved it with showing working out. Check out some of our results on the board.

We then used some handy software to check our answers. This was a lot of fun as we counted the groups together and got excited when we found an answer!

Finally we discussed together about whether there was a pattern. Here were our results:

6, 26, 46, 66…

Can you see a pattern?

YES! We noticed that the numbers increased by 20 each time.

We spent nearly a week on this activity and it was a lot of fun working in teams, using counters and the software on the computer to complete the problem solving activity.

What did you enjoy the most about this activity and why?

What did you find challenging and why?

Can you write an example how multiplication is the opposite of dividing?

Can you try and guess out of all the possible answers, which one would be the correct class size that Mrs Baldwin had last year? Why do you think this?

14 thoughts on “Dividing into groups

    1. Dear Gina
      Thanks we all tried really hard to work out our problems that our teacher gave us!!🐈🐧

  1. Dear mrs Baldwin,
    I liked how we got to go and try and find different ways grouping up to 28. I found that there are a few different ways but I also forgot that I could switch them around such as 4 groups of 7 then to 7 groups of 4. Well I think 4 groups of 7 would be right because it goes by 7 and I can show You 7,14,21,24 that is four numbers.

    From Max

    1. Dear Max ,
      I also liked grouping things up to twenty eight because I love maths. I also forgot that you could switch them around to so I could have got a lot more numbers. I just halved each number then wrote it down.
      from JamesM

  2. dear miss baldwin l enjoyed math because the contours helped with my math
    l did not find that mush challenging
    multiplication is the opposite of dividing because if swop the numbers over it like your time tables

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