Monday, February 14, 2011

Which is which?

     In class I learned about two concepts of division. It was baffling to me as to what the difference was between the two.  It did not click in my mind.  I had to think of the sharing concept as "give until you run out".  For example: 6/3, 6 Divided by 3.  There is a set number of groups, 3 people, and I want to give each person or 'group' a flower, so I hand one out to each individual one by one until I run out of flowers.  By evenly distributing the flowers I will get  2 flowers for each group or friend.
     Once I understood the first concept my mind blocked out understanding for the measurement concept.  I had to think of the phrase "count how may groups there are".  For example: 10/2, 10 Divided by 2.  I have to make groups of 2.  I don't know how many groups there will be but I know there will be 2 in each group.  I will have 2 flowers per friend for as many friends as I can, evenly, which will be 5 friends. 
     While this is a long video the first few minutes I thought was a good summery of division and the concepts of division.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTzTqvzWzm8

Sharing Concept & Measurement Concept: Here are some good links to check out.
http://letsplaymath.net/2010/04/12/the-cookie-factory-guide-to-long-division/
http://www.gigglelearn.com/3rd_grade_math.html

 For picture above:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.getchy.com/2007/about/esther/pink%2520flowers.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.getchy.com/2007