Learning Division on YouTube and with Spirit Lake 2

Last time we got started on the basic of division and practiced division of one two-digit numbers, like 28 ÷ 7. Now we’re going to move on to long division.  All of these videos can be found on our youtube play list on, you guessed it, division. Watching all of the videos together takes less than five minutes.

What’s the first step in long division?

This video explains the first step in long division, which is to guess, and walks through step by step solving a problem of dividing a three-digit number by a two-digit number. A hundred years ago when I was in elementary school, they called this method “guess and check”.

Division with remainders

The next video explains and gives an example of division with remainders. As you might have guessed by now, we’re a big believer that students need examples and also that having information presented both verbally and visually helps.

Another long division example

Here is another video which uses guessing, again dividing a three-digit number by a two-digit number. Why do we have two videos? Because it’s helpful to go over a concept or skill more than once. 

The last video uses division in word problems. The first problem is a simple one, dividing a two-digit number by a one-digit number. The others are dividing three-digit numbers by two-digit numbers. You may want to use a calculator for this. 

Spirit Lake: The Game teaches multiplication and division.

After watching these videos, you may want to have your child play that game. While U.S. schools are out, we are making Spirit Lake available free. You can click the link below to download it for Mac and Windows computers. As an added bonus, the game story line is based on the history of the Spirit Lake Dakota, so your child can learn social studies while learning math.

If you don’t have a computer you can spare for school work or you are just think worksheets aren’t a bad idea , you can find a link to several sources for free worksheets here. Be aware that many of these do require the worksheet to be printed, so you would need access to a printer.