Fun Ways to Teach Long Division: Tips and Tricks

Although it's usually necessary, teaching long division can be more fun and effective when memorization is only one part of the process. Building your child's division skills through interactive lessons, online games and visuals can be useful and engaging. Read on for more information about teaching long division at home.

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Helping Your Child with Long Division at Home

Getting Your Child Set Up

Before getting started, discuss your child's specific needs with his or her math teacher. Additionally, becoming familiar with the district's math standards will enable you to more successfully provide long division lessons. Keep in mind that your child will be able to concentrate better if you create a dedicated learning space at home that's free of clutter, television and distracting gadgets. Once your child begins to grasps the basics, like multiplication tables and simple division, the fun can begin.

Teaching Long Division around the House

Kids often learn best when their schoolwork and homework relates to everyday life. Use objects around the house to create division problems. For instance, you might use candy to represent numbers. Alternatively, take advantage of real-life situations that require long division. If you are planning a party, for example, have your child figure out how many slices of cake each guest can eat using division.

Keep a whiteboard in your child's study space and review using the board with your child every day, always changing the math problems. Start with simple long division problems that involve numbers that divide evenly. After some time, move on to problems with single-digit remainders and then double-digit remainders. Finally, move on to problems that include remainders in any of the possible place values.

Online Division Games

To learn more about the various ways to teach long division, there are many free and for-profit online resources that can help. There are a large number of online games for many different levels that can help your child practice long division in a fun, challenging way. Before having your child play such games on his or her own, weave it into a division lesson by sitting with your child and playing the games together. Monitor your child's progress through a game and always increase the difficulty when it appears that your child has mastered it.

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