Introduction to Division
Lessons in this chapter
About Introduction to Division
Sharing is Caring introduces division through the thing kids already do fairly: splitting something so everyone gets the same.
Make Equal Groups and Share Equally covers both meanings of division, and they are genuinely different questions. Twelve sweets shared between three children asks how many each gets. Twelve sweets put into groups of three asks how many groups there are. Both are 12 ÷ 3, and kids who have only met one get stuck on the other.
Solve Simple Division Problems keeps the numbers small and the context concrete, and leans on the multiplication facts from the previous chapter. A child who knows 3 × 4 is 12 has most of what is needed to see that 12 ÷ 3 is 4.
Remainders, long division and dividing larger numbers are all later. What 2nd grade is after is the meaning, and the link back to multiplication, so that division arrives as the reverse of something known rather than as a new procedure.
Make Equal Groups and Share Equally and Solve Simple Division Problems are the chapter's two lessons, each a worksheet worked in the page and scored as you go. Sharing comes first and the symbol comes much later, which is why two lessons is the right length. Both are free to practice online.
Frequently asked questions
Making equal groups and sharing a quantity equally, and then simple division problems built on that. There is no long division, no remainders and no formal notation yet. Division is not a Common Core topic at 2nd grade; it opens in 3rd grade under Operations and Algebraic Thinking (3.OA), and the equal-groups work here sits closest to 2.OA.
Splitting an amount into equal parts. It answers either how many each gets, or how many groups there are, depending on how the question is asked.
Sharing, where 12 ÷ 3 means 12 shared between 3 people. And grouping, where 12 ÷ 3 means how many groups of 3 fit into 12. Both give 4, but they are different questions.
It undoes it. A child who knows 3 × 4 = 12 can see that 12 ÷ 3 = 4, which is why multiplication is taught first.
No. The numbers are chosen to divide exactly. Remainders and long division come in later grades.
Because 2nd grade only introduces the meaning. 3rd grade's Division chapter builds the methods on top of it.