Two Games for Practicing Fluency & Dividing 3 -4 Digit Dividends Against 1 Digit Divisors

I started our game day today with the game 24, which has been around for a long time. It currently supports CCSS 4.NBT standards for fluency. It is a good warm up game before we conquer some more challenging division problems today.

24:This card game is a great way to practice some fluency in all operations. I grouped my students of similar ability levels to play this game. I wanted each student to have an equal chance at winning. I decided if someone in the group won more than three times, I would move them to a different group so the remaining group would have a better chance at winning. I planned to do this to keep students from giving up.

I explained the basic rules, but with modifications to ensure a low level of frustration and no time limits. I wanted this to be fun.

Students were presented with a card that had digits that needed to be added, subtracted, multiplied or divided to create the end result of 24. 24 Smiles.

When students arrived at their answer, they put two fingers on the card and then they needed to be able to tell the process of operations they used to arrive at their result. You can see that in the picture above. If they were right, they got a plastic cube from me ( in the official rules, a cube is a penalty) and started with a new card. Two groups soon switched to level 2 from level 1. My above grade level group started with level 3 and were flying through, competing seriously with one another.

The Greatest Quotient Game:

I was looking for a creative way to ease students into 4 digit by one digit division and extend their skills and fluency in dividing 2, 3 and 4 digit dividends as the standard requires. The Greatest Quotient Game is a good dice game that promotes their thinking about place value, value and helps them practice fluency skills in division. They would use The Box Method as the standard requires.

Kids worked in teams of 2 to 3 for this game. They needed to roll dice three or four times depending if they were creating a four digit or three digit number. They drew three or four lines on their paper to choose where they wanted to put each digit with each roll. I used partnering strategically for support, thinking about levels of students and who would be good mentors to those who were struggling.

The game works like this:

Example: Divide a three digit by one digit number, so we roll one die three times.

        6     __    __

The first roll is 6, so I choose to place the six in the hundreds place.  I keep rolling and  filling in the blanks strategically. The final roll is for the divisor.  So the largest number will be 6 hundred something or 6 thousand something, if you have chosen to practice 4 digit dividends.

The object of the game is for the student to figure out how to produce the largest quotient. The student with the largest quotient wins.

Greatest Quotient Game Clip: This clip shows a student filling in the blanks, using his strategies to set up his problem to solve. You can hear the laughter and conversation between him and his partner. Students worked the The Box Method in their notebooks as they played.

The next clip shows a conversation with my student as he realizes that his answer was not accurate. This game gives students a chance to make mistakes and learn the concepts in a lighter atmosphere than just sitting at a desk with a worksheet. It also helps them think through where digits should be placed to make the greatest quotient. This student hadn't finished dividing out the number. Addressing Accuracy

Another student wanted to know about adding in remainders to create the quotient. Add remainders???. A group of girls asked me about adding up remainders to produce a quotient. Confusion: I pulled them over to a whiteboard and worked with them to help them understand why you don't add the remainders. Partners were supporting one another's learning process. Partnering for support: This ensured that students who had mastered the lesson, were being leaders, as well as affirming their understanding.

We had a lot of fun, and a lot was revealed to me in the process. Read my reflection to see what I found out.