Day 30: Dividing with Decimal Divisors

6th Grade Math Standards: 6.NS.3 Fluently add, subtract, multiply, and divide multi-digit decimals using the standard algorithm for each operation.

Objective: Divide with divisors that are decimals

Question: When Mr. Stadel poured the liquid into the vase, how did he know how many liters and ounces were leaving one vase and entering the other?

Agenda:

1. What Doesn't Belong Number 6 and Number 18
2. QSSQ
3. Review HW & Pepper
4. Decimal divisor 5 questions to wonder
5. Decimal divisor practice (three sample problems)
6. Decimal divisor homework

Assessment: I was circumventing the room as students worked in partners on the decimal divisor five questions to wonder.

Glass Half-Full: The students were really curious as to what 360 divided by 0 was by the time we got to the end of the paper. What most of them failed to recognize though was that zero was lower than all of the decimal numbers that they were dividing by. They were insisting that the answer had to be zero.

On the spot I thought to have students who were getting zero check the work the same way they would check the work by doing 12 divided by 4 and multiplying their quotient by the divisor. When that did not make sense we had to conclude that the idea of zero being the quotient was also flawed. Ultimately I had them type it into their phone and they received an error message back. 

I think there is room for growth within this lesson as the realization of anything divided by zero is somewhat of a shock to the system they were used to knowing. We worked in strategies with similar numbers (as in how many half dollars can you fit in two dollars and the afore mentioned 12 divided by 4) to make sense of the solutions we were getting with 360. It was only five questions, but I might even shorten it down to four as a result of the amount of time that we can continue to explore the answer to these questions without me giving too much direction. I could just plug in most of the chart where they have to divide in question one. 

Regrets: I'm having a hard time of involving my students that are quieter and more specifically lacking skills or confidence in their number sense when we do the What Doesn't Belong activities. The way I set up this is by having students right reasons and numbers in their notebooks as I go around the room checking homework. The students then are grouped based on the seating in the room on to four separate teams. Each team has a turn to say one thing and then it cannot be repeated again by another group. We generally go around the room three teams with the students pointing out anywhere from four to eight differences. The same people are always participating. Perhaps what I could do is have everyone pass in their work to confirm that certain students are at least participating in writing.