Uncle Norm and Walter the rubber duck have been volunteered to help organize a bake sale to help the rubber duck-racing club buy a new training pool. The kids find Norm and Walter in the workshop, where Norm is wearing his special vest emblazoned with duck-racing patches and paraphernalia, and is surrounded by cakes, brownies, and cookie trays. Norm stares at a plate of cookies that has been cut into small unequal sections. He is muttering about complicated cutting methods (“Maybe I need a laser spatula?”). The kids look at the crumbly cookie mess:“You’re not going to sell those, are you Uncle Norm? They explain that he probably shouldn’t divide small treats at all, but larger items, like round pies, pans of squares, and batches of cookies, should be divided into smaller, equal-sized portions. It would be fun to visit someone who divides cakes and other desserts. I know just the guy: “This ya gotta see!” Yum!

The Gist: Teaching division concepts in elementary school begins in the primary grades, when students learn the concept of fair shares or dividing things equally among groups. This progresses to students learning basic division facts, and finally, in Grade 4 or 5, students begin to expand their knowledge of division to the long division algorithm. Most mathematics educators suggest that teachers and parents introduce the concept of division by using the word ‘grouping´ since that is what division is: putting things into groups, e.g., dividing 12 by 4 is really just breaking apart 12 into 4 groups or sharing 12 objects among 4 people. In elementary classrooms, teachers use real objects to teach the principles of division to students.