Why use division?
Division
is used for figuring out how many groups of the same size there
are in a set or collection of objects. Division is also
useful for finding out how many objects are in each group when
a set is divided.
Here is an example of when you might use division:
There are 36 students in your class.
Your teacher wants to create 3 equal groups
of students. To figure out how many students would be in each
group, you need to divide.
36 students ÷ 3
groups = 12 students in each group
This means that when 36
is divided into 3 groups,
there are 12 students in each group.
or
3 divides into 36
twelve times.
Vocabulary
• The number that is being divided into groups
is called a dividend.
• The number of groups is called a divisor.
• The answer is called a quotient
and represents the number in each group.
36 |
÷ |
3 |
= |
12 |
dividend |
|
divisor |
|
quotient |
Division and Multiplication
Division and multiplication
are inverse operations. This means that division is the
opposite of multiplication. You can use multiplication to check
your quotient.
36
÷ 3 = 12 |
is the opposite of |
3
× 12 = 36 |
