Long division

 When the long division was presented to me in my course, I wondered if this was really needed for a  4year old? Why is this complicated division presented here? I have often thought about it. Me and my dear friend when we worked together for a while, have presented these to a couple of children both in decimal operations and stamps. Children have shown quite a good understanding, but haven't repeated them as much as needed, at least in my class.

I recently started reading about the idea behind these materials and this is what I read and putting here 

First of all, about Division

A division should be started from the left hand side and not from the right hand side. This is preferred because otherwise, we gave to change at every stage and break up the tens and hundreds and thousands so often that the division becomes very tedious and long. Starting from the left it is easy and quick, so we distribute the quantities equally in this way

Now coming to Long Division

Long division is actually very short because the longer the divisor the shorter the division. 

We will take a number, 1332 and divide it by 12. Twelve people are chosen, but ten of the twelve choose a leader who represents all the ten, including himself. The leader, who takes for all the ten, is given a blue ribbon in order to distinguish him from the other two. These other two are given green ribbons. The children already know that a hundred contains ten tens and a thousand contains ten hundreds and so on. So if we give a thousand to the leader, we give one hundred each to the other two. And so we distribute the quantities in that proportion. The leader gets 1110 and the other two get 111 each. The leader has then to distribute what he has, to nine of his colleagues and himself. Each one of the ten gets 111, the answer of the division is what each one gets. So the amount is split into 12 equal parts, each one getting 111.

And this is exactly what we do when we present a long division to a group.. How interesting!!

Why is it presented?

    >   A child who can count up to ten can see the function of the decimal system and the nature of operations here

    >    to keep the child's interest alive after knowing how to put hierarchies in order

Why exactness of answers is ignored here?

    Children must do these operations even if there is an error. They will not recognise errors here because they cannot verify anything except the quantities. The importance is not in the answer, but in function. The exactness can be learnt later and we know what helps there.

How do you prepare a child to be ready for a division/long division presentation?

    Lots of change games must be played with the children where they have an idea of how many tens make a hundred and how can a hundred be split into.

As usual, the role of an adult while presenting is to 

• help children verify quantities
• help children understand the function of operations
• help children understand the hierarchy in the decimal system
• help children articulate what they do