Division Lesson Plan: Number and Operations

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Division Lesson Plan.

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Division, and supports the standard of finding whole-number quotients of whole numbers with up to 3-digit dividends. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Display an image of a pizza cut into 8 slices, like this one:

Ask students: 

• How can 4 friends share this pizza equally?  
• This pizza is cut into 8 slices. What are other ways to divide the pizza so it can be shared equally by 4 people?

Step 2: BUILD BACKGROUND

• Read aloud the description on the Division topic page. 
• Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding. 
• Have students read one of the Related Reading articles. Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.
  

Step 3: ENGAGE

Students express what they learned about division while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs. 

• Make-a-Movie: Create a tutorial that answers this question: How can you find the answers to 24 divided by 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8? Write division sentences for each problem. (Essential Literacy Skill: Determine central ideas) (Essential Math Skill: Represent & solve problems using 4 operations)
• Make-a-Map: Make a concept map defining the three elements, or parts, of a division problem. Include an example of a division problem and identify the three elements. (Essential Literacy Skill: Acquire and use domain-specific words and phrases)
• Creative Coding: Code a math problem that involves division. (Essential Math Skill: Represent & solve problems using 4 operations)

Step 4: APPLY & ASSESS 

Apply: Students complete the Division Worksheet, applying essential math and literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Assess: Wrap up the lesson with the Division Quiz. 

Step 5: EXTEND LEARNING

Numbers and Operations Unit: Continue to build understanding around number sense and operations with more BrainPOP topics.

Additional Support Resources:

• Pause Point Overview: Video tutorial showing how Pause Points actively engage students  to stop, think, and express ideas.
• Modifications for BrainPOP Learning Activities: Strategies to meet ELL and other instructional and student needs.
• BrainPOP Learning Activities Support: Resources for best practices using BrainPOP.