Division and Halloween

Using a lesson plan created by my mentor Emily Soderborg, the kids at Rocky Mountain Elementary and I learned a LOT about division and we had tons of fun doing it. I haven't done math for about 4 years, so I had to look up some of the division lingo to make sure I was doing it right. I'll be honest, I even messed up a simple division problem, but the kids helped me fix it so I know they get it :)

We learned a new song today called "Old Joe Clark." To get the melody in their heads, we added some movements; walking around in a circle with linked arms (the kids didn't want to hold hands...), and walking to the center and back during the chorus. It was a challenge for them since they were in a bit of an oval shape and some of the boys didn't understand the concept of round circles. Then, we changed the chorus to "make a group of ____, make it really fast, how many remainders last?" Each time we sang the song, we put a different number in the space. I started it simple, with groups of two or three, and then went up to five. We wrote the division problem on the board every time we did the chorus. The kids (and I) learned that this is measurement division!

We changed the chorus again to "come together in ____ groups, come together fast, how many remainders last?" The kids had a harder time with this kind of division, which is called partitive division. But after a few times, it got easier for them.

Then, I labeled the parts of the division problem and we sang a new verse about the vocabulary (dividend, divisor, quotient, remainder). I was worried that because the words were so big, the kids would have trouble singing this verse. But with the words on the board, they got it just fine. I also had some students come up and "conduct" the verse for me by pointing to the correct parts of the problem.

We had a bit of extra time, so I pulled out a Halloween song called "Pumpkin Stew." The song was a hit, but the partner hand game wasn't since the boys and girls didn't want to touch each other at all. So we switched it to "Witches Brew" and thought of gross things we could put in the brew. When I left, they had come up with four gross ingredients and rhythms to match. Ms. Brown took it a step further after and had them create an 8 measure section using the gross ingredients. Even though they didn't know it, we practiced dividing into groups of 2 during the partner game in "Pumpkin Stew," so it all ended up connecting in one way or another.