Education Technology


Remainder Rules

Activity Overview

Students use calculators, whole-number division, multiplication, addition, and subtraction to generate mathematical expressions that describe the relationships between dividends, divisors, quotients, and remainders.

Before the Activity

  • See the attached PDF file for detailed instructions for this activity
  • Print student activity sheet pages 1 - 5 from the attached PDF file for your class
  • During the Activity

    Distribute the pages to the class.

    Follow the activity procedures:

  • Determine how many carnations to order and what size bunches to make, to have five carnations left over
  • Use calculator, counting cubes, and counting sticks to explore solutions
  • Use the data to describe the relationship between the dividends and divisors that result in the remainder 5
  • Use words, numbers, and operation symbols to describe the patterns
  • Repeat the activity to determine the number of flowers to order to make bunches of 8 flowers without having any flower left
  • After the Activity

  • Review student results
  • As a class, discuss questions that appeared to be more challenging
  • Re-teach concepts as necessary