Math Game - Divvy Up

Right now the older students are working on Long Division. In the Montessori math progression, this is usually done first with the Golden Beads, then with the Stamp Game, and finally with the Racks & Tubes.

Now we are doing it with abstraction (which I refer to as simply using logic).

Once you've done the Racks & Tubes, the algorithm makes so much sense!

Rather than wait until the children had mastered it all to introduce a Long Division game, I went straight into a game. The whole class played against me! That incentivized them to learn the steps in the algorithm more quickly, in order to make predictions and decide on a winning strategy.

Here is the game:

click on image to enlarge

I found this loose paper in my teacher stash, but I don't know what book I pulled it out of. Sorry!

Divvy Up is a cousin to the Dice Game, which we use every year to reinforce Place Value. And the children have loved it. You can play this game with either a six-sided or ten-sided die. I think 10 is more fun. However, I asked the children if a zero came up to just re-roll. I didn't want to chance a zero in the divisor (which is undefined).

Tips: Because it is too easy to end up with the exact same problem when using a two digit dividend, I let them use a three digit or four digit dividend. And I HIGHLY recommend having children do long division on graph paper to help keep the place value lined up. I like these math journals:

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