Sharing a.k.a Dividing! Maths Lesson #1

I love maths. I'm a maths teacher after all. But who doesn't love maths? And before you say 'I don't', don't! Being innumerate is as much a barrier as being illiterate in the 21st Century. Plus, I've got some maths-y things to share with you so you have to at least pretend you like maths. And why? This month's theme is 'Sharing' and sharing is essentially what dividing is. So, as well as read them their superb books, why not practise a dividing activity with your little ones?

Now I was going to make a video but I'm still recovering from a chest infection and my voice sounds even more boring than usual so instead I've provided some other resources that you can peruse through at your leisure. As a heads-up, it's worth mentioning that the main methed is aimed at greater than 4 but could be tweaked so that they're accessible to 2 or 3 year olds.

Here's a really helpful video showing my favourite introductory technique for division. The video itself is rather dry but you could easily mix it up a bit. Maybe try and share out sweets amongst teddies or craft pom poms into pots?

Now using the division sign is an abstract concept that children do not need to understand until they are much older. But other visual or cenceptual methods like this one are extremely helpful. Without going on too much of a maths teacher rant, it's important that all mathematical concepts are taught visually where possible.

This may also be a suitable part of the blog to point out that parents who say things like 'It's OK. I was never very good at maths either' encourage the culture of it being acceptable. Indeed the biggest negative impact comes from mothers saying it to their daughters apparently.

Anyway, moving on... here are some delightful photos of little ones doing some basic division taken expertly from Google! I take no credit for these.

The last photo isn't immediately referring to division necessarily but division is the inverse of multiplication and, here, the teacher is teaching a boy to count to 20 using bears. If he did it in multiples of five for instance then one could then move on to making the link that if four fives make twenty, then 20 divided by four equals five.

I won't go on. There are so many excellent visual, conceptual ideas for lots four addition, subtraction, multiplication and division that I could bang on about for ages. If you want any more advice, send me an email. Or, you never know, my maths blogs might be such a hit that I'll make another one when relevant to do so.

Ever the optimist.

For other sharing activities, please refer to our Pinterest board. As always, we post our favourite themed resources on their.

And below is our collection of favourite Sharing books again.

See you in the New Year!