I need help teaching long division

[misidawnrn]

We are doing long division right now in ABeka 3. DD is just.not.getting.it! We talk about the steps. We do extra practice every day. I write the steps on the bottom of the page and she can't remember where the numbers go or what the steps are. Does anyone have any really great tips/videos/resources, etc? Thanks so much.

[Barb_]

Long division is tough Kids need to see it repeatedly in order to remember it. I don't know whether you homeschooled your oldest, but in 3rd grade, you are mostly going for exposure and not mastery of long division. My kids never nailed down long division until about age 10-11, even the ones who eventually went on to pull A's in Calculus and Differential equations in high school. I would suggest getting through it the best you can and then moving on. If it makes you feel better, you can go here: http://themathworksheetsite.com/long_division.html and print off a sheet once a week for review, but I really don't believe it's necessary. Third grade isn't the last time you will see this.

[maize]

Long division is tough Kids need to see it repeatedly in order to remember it. I don't know whether you homeschooled your oldest, but in 3rd grade, you are mostly going for exposure and not mastery of long division. My kids never nailed down long division until about age 10-11, even the ones who eventually went on to pull A's in Calculus and Differential equations in high school. I would suggest getting through it the best you can and then moving on. If it makes you feel better, you can go here: http://themathworksh...g_division.html and print off a sheet once a week for review, but I really don't believe it's necessary. Third grade isn't the last time you will see this.

 

:iagree: Many excellent programs don't even introduce long division in 3rd grade. We use Math Mammoth and it doesn't teach long division until the second half of 4th grade.

[Alte Veste Academy]

:D Get yourself and your DD a lovely beverage and sit down to watch Rosie's videos (click on the first one about long division). Do you have C-rods? They will help too. And/or a big whiteboard. DD loved this explanation of long division.

[LucyStoner]

My son really likes the different long division videos on Khan Academy. It is free to watch online. They helped a lot.

[*Jen*]

For my DS we had to go a very visual route for him to understand the steps of long division just like we did when he first learned basic division.

 

I had a large number of 1, 10, 100, and 1000 number discs and bowls to represent the groups we were dividing them into. It took using a white board to show him the steps and the number discs to be a visual of what we were doing. We talked our way through multiplying to figure out how many total were in the bowls, why we subtracted them, why there were so many left and how they joined into the next place value and dropping down the next digit.

 

The first day we did several problems that way and he was off. The next two days he would ask to use the discs and bowls for a problem or two and then the steps would be back in his head and he would go on without them. The visual/tactile part of it is what really helped him cement it in his head. He went from doing long division by just 2 or 3 to 9 in just a few days with very few mistakes.

 

Reading through this post by Maria Miller helped me to understand the best way to explain it to DS.

 

http://www.homeschoolmath.net/teaching/md/long_division.php

[Chrysalis Academy]

We have found the combo of Math Mammoth and Khan Academy to be stellar for explaining things. MM is so very incremental and step by step - if the issue is a "missing link" in the conceptual understanding, MM will provide it! Sal Khan is just so great at explaining things too - how they work and why they work. Dd has just watched all the dividing decimals videos, and it really solidified the concepts for her.

 

Though I agree with pps that I wouldn't expect a 3rd grader to master long division. This seems like "4th grade math" to me.

[ErinE]

Alta Veste pointed to the lesson I was looking for. My DS kept getting the steps confused. Sitting down with c-rods and walking through the steps really helped solidify the "Whys" of long division. We had one big lesson walking through several examples using manipulatives and the white board, starting with 2-digit, 3-digit, and then larger numbers. Some days, I might need to reiterate what he's doing, but it really helped him understand the concepts, not just the steps.

[misidawnrn]

Whew, thanks ladies for making me feel like my kid isn't going to flunk 3rd grade. I don't remember doing long division until about 4th grade also but that was a long time ago. I didn't hs my son so this is our first time with hs 3rd grade. I am checking out all your links!

[Lucy]

Best mommy quote of the week at our house: "Long division is the dirty toilet bowl of the mathmatical world. No one likes to do it - but you just gotta scrub until it's done."

[Alessandra]

If you have an iPad, iPhone, iPod -- you might like to look at the app, Long Division Touch. It's from the same developer as Algebra Touch -- we love these programs, as they are very visual. It makes long division fun!

 

http://www.regularberry.com/#&panel1-2

 

and of course in the iTunes store.

[kristi26]

Long division is tough. DS9 is super quick with all things school-related and even HE is struggling with remembering the steps. I've been printing extra practice worksheets for him from mathusee.com (which is the curriculum we use anyway). The videos on Khan Academy's site are good too. DS12 took a LONG time to get it, for what it's worth. The only thing that has worked here is lots and lots of practice!

[serendipitous journey]

Just throwing another option out there -- we didn't do so well with long division until we used the Kitchen Table 2 book; you can try the Search Inside feature to see if you think that would be helpful. A free option, by the author of Math Mammoth, is this tutorial with video.

 

good luck!

[jayb842]

I'm doing Abeka 4. You will see it next year too . Ds is on lesson 72 and is doing problems like 58/5789. He kind of got it last year. I was more concerned about doing multiplation facts last year. He picked up quickly this year.

[Georgiana Daniels]

We are doing long division right now in ABeka 3. DD is just.not.getting.it! We talk about the steps. We do extra practice every day. I write the steps on the bottom of the page and she can't remember where the numbers go or what the steps are. Does anyone have any really great tips/videos/resources, etc? Thanks so much.

 

 

Try not to stress. As the others mentioned, it's not the last time you'll see it. FWIW, I have mixed feelings about the way ABeka teaches it since it's not quite the way I learned it.

 

I'll be checking out the Khan videos.

[Rebel Yell]

SOmetimes, the brightest, most obedient and willing children with the best teachers and the best programs simply aren't ready for a concept. Often I have seen homeschoolers (as they have the freedom to do so) switch curriculum/supplement/etc or school children (as they have to keep pace with their classmates) get tutoring and then one magical day BAM! They get it! Sometimes it truly is the extra work or different approach, but I'd bet that much of the time it was simply a matter of time and the magical program/supplement/tutor gets the credit. My theory is that if the new plan works almost instantly- it was the program. If it takes several months- it was probably the brain. ;) I see this just as much with Grammar concepts, too.

 

A great benefit of homeschooling in my family is that if a child is "behind" in one subject, they can still progress in others. I had two very late readers- but it didn;t hold them back as it would have in a large group setting. Once they were ready to move ahead in their weak areas we could pick up the pace, rather than doing a single grade in a single year. Somewhere around 7th grade they were completely caught up and reasonably even in grade level in all subjects, and this is with two of mine being "young" for their grade by local ps standards.

 

ANyway, I hope you find somethign that works- whether it's a magic program or just a little time.

 

editing to add: I don;t at all believe it is always a brain maturity issue- I have two children whose math books may as well have been written in invisible ink... (the third LOVEs the program they hated) The fun was when the same child had BOTH a need for more time AND a different math program

[EKS]

Try teaching short division first.

's a video explaining it. It teaches the concept of long division but is more intuitive. Once she masters short division, you can move back to long division again.

[Hunter]

I make up lots of very long problems divided by 2. And we sing our way through the problems, until they feel the rhythm.

 

Then we move into 3's and then 4's and so on, reviewing multiplication facts as we go.

[jen3kids]

I always started with 2s and 5s so he already knew the answer, and we used base 10 blocks for a long, long time. They really helped cement the 'why' of long division.

[scrapbabe]

I used this with my son and we loved it! http://letsplaymath.net/2010/04/12/the-cookie-factory-guide-to-long-division/ It made so much sense.

[claire up north]

Here are the two suggestions that really helped my boys. First, I used some large square graph paper. This helped ensure that all the numbers remained lined up correctly. The second thing I did was have the kids draw an arrow from the original number down to where it belongs as the process unfolds. For some reason, this really helped.

 

Good luck. As I told my boys, long division is the most torturous topic in math ever. Period.

 

 

[JumpyTheFrog]

:D Get yourself and your DD a lovely beverage and sit down to watch Rosie's videos (click on the first one about long division). Do you have C-rods? They will help too. And/or a big whiteboard. DD loved this explanation of long division.

 

 

Thanks for the suggestion. Tigger enjoyed her long division videos. I certainly wasn't planning for him to learn it this week, but he's off to a good start.

[Dana]

I found using Base 10 blocks really helped.

We did long division over a couple days.

 

First day my son did the problem with the blocks (say, how do you divide 357 by 2). Start by dividing the larger blocks (each person gets 1 hundred block), then we take the leftover hundred block & break it up into tens. Now we have 15 tens to share. Each person gets 7 tens & we have one left over. Break the ten into ones. We've got 17 ones. Divide them up & each person has 8 ones with one as a remainder.

 

Then we did the exact same problem again, but this time as he moved the blocks, I wrote the notation for the step.

We did this with a couple of problems on the first day - I did all the writing.

 

The second day I had him do a couple of problems. First, just using the blocks and writing down the final answer, then trying to write the standard notation. It can also help to use ruled paper turned sideways so you have columns to write in.

 

By the third or fourth day I had him doing the work just by hand with the traditional algorithm. If he got a problem wrong, I'd have him show me with the blocks.

 

I really think using the base 10 blocks made a huge difference to conceptual understanding.

[Kathy in Richmond]

I found using Base 10 blocks really helped.

We did long division over a couple days.

 

First day my son did the problem with the blocks (say, how do you divide 357 by 2). Start by dividing the larger blocks (each person gets 1 hundred block), then we take the leftover hundred block & break it up into tens. Now we have 15 tens to share. Each person gets 7 tens & we have one left over. Break the ten into ones. We've got 17 ones. Divide them up & each person has 8 ones with one as a remainder.

 

Then we did the exact same problem again, but this time as he moved the blocks, I wrote the notation for the step.

We did this with a couple of problems on the first day - I did all the writing.

 

The second day I had him do a couple of problems. First, just using the blocks and writing down the final answer, then trying to write the standard notation. It can also help to use ruled paper turned sideways so you have columns to write in.

 

By the third or fourth day I had him doing the work just by hand with the traditional algorithm. If he got a problem wrong, I'd have him show me with the blocks.

 

I really think using the base 10 blocks made a huge difference to conceptual understanding.

 

:iagree: This is exactly what I did with my daughter back when she first met long division. It's a good method for visual learners, & led to solid conceptual understanding.

[Tress]

I found using Base 10 blocks really helped.

We did long division over a couple days.

 

First day my son did the problem with the blocks (say, how do you divide 357 by 2). Start by dividing the larger blocks (each person gets 1 hundred block), then we take the leftover hundred block & break it up into tens. Now we have 15 tens to share. Each person gets 7 tens & we have one left over. Break the ten into ones. We've got 17 ones. Divide them up & each person has 8 ones with one as a remainder.

 

Then we did the exact same problem again, but this time as he moved the blocks, I wrote the notation for the step.

We did this with a couple of problems on the first day - I did all the writing.

 

The second day I had him do a couple of problems. First, just using the blocks and writing down the final answer, then trying to write the standard notation. It can also help to use ruled paper turned sideways so you have columns to write in.

 

By the third or fourth day I had him doing the work just by hand with the traditional algorithm. If he got a problem wrong, I'd have him show me with the blocks.

 

I really think using the base 10 blocks made a huge difference to conceptual understanding.

 

I was getting ready to type a long response detailing what we did, then I saw Dana's post....and that was exactly what we did. Only we talked about dividing cookies (while using blocks, I do not want hundreds of cookies in the house :D) because talking about cookies always makes my kids pay attention, LOL.