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 12 balloons.
There are 3 children who each want
the same number of balloons. To figure out how many balloons each
child can have, you need to divide.
12 balloons ÷ 3
children = 4 balloons for each child
This means that when 12 balloons
are divided into 3 groups, there
are 4 balloons in each group, or
that 3 divides into 12
four 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.
20 |
÷ |
4 |
= |
5 |
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.
20 ÷ 4
= 5 is the opposite of 4
× 5 = 20
