Classroom Activities: Making Equal Groups

These classroom activities are designed to complement the Making Equal Groups topic on BrainPOP Jr.

Divide and Conquer
Tell your students that they will be making teams of two people. How many teams will there be? If you have an odd number of students, you can add yourself as a team member. Solve the problem together and model the division sentence on the board. Prepare different bags filled with even numbers of counters. Give each team a bag to divide equally. Students may want to make tally charts, draw pictures, or dole them out one by one. Make sure all teams get a chance to divide each collection. Teams should write their division sentences and solve together.

By the Dozen

Give pairs a collection of a dozen items, such as coins, counters, or cubes. Then challenge them to find as many ways as possible to divide them into equal groups. Encourage students to make arrays to help them. Have students write number sentences and share what they learned with the rest of the class.

In the Barnyard

Write different riddles on the board about barnyard animals and the number of legs that they have. For example, “There are 16 legs in the chicken coop. How many chickens are there?” Have students figure out the answer by using number lines and skip-counting. Then have them write division sentences to show their answer.