Lesson 16
Base-ten Blocks to Divide
Lesson Purpose
The purpose of this lesson is for students to make sense of base-ten representations for division.
Lesson Narrative
In the previous lesson, students applied their understanding from grade 3 to divide two- and three-digit numbers by one-digit divisors. Students worked with dividends slightly beyond 100 and represented their thinking in a way that made sense to them.
In this lesson, students work with larger dividends and represent problems with base-ten blocks. This representation emphasizes place value, which supports the work with division in this section. Students are asked to represent their work with base-ten blocks on paper, but that is not the emphasis of this lesson. In the next lesson, students will make sense of and use base-ten diagrams. In future lessons, they will be able to choose a representation and method that makes sense to them as they go deeper into division work.
- Representation
Learning Goals
Teacher Facing
- Divide two-digit numbers by one-digit divisors using base-ten blocks.
Student Facing
- Let’s use base-ten blocks to divide.
Required Materials
Materials to Gather
Required Preparation
Activity 1:
- Each group of 3–4 students needs a set of base-ten blocks that includes 4 hundreds blocks, 10 ten blocks, and 25 ones blocks.
Lesson Timeline
| Warm-up | 10 min |
| Activity 1 | 25 min |
| Activity 2 | 10 min |
| Lesson Synthesis | 10 min |
| Cool-down | 5 min |
Teacher Reflection Questions
What surprised you about how students used base-ten blocks to find the value of quotients? How might you use this in tomorrow’s lesson?
Suggested Centers
- Compare (1–5), Stage 4: Divide within 100 (Supporting)
- Rolling for Fractions (3–5), Stage 2: Multiply a Fraction by a Whole Number (Supporting)