1. What does the total number of rocks collected in one column represent?
  2. What do the numbers to the right of the columns mean?
  3. How does Jackie figure out how many rocks are left in the bag after each try?
  4. When does Jackie decide she is done with the problem?
  5. What does it mean to say that there are two rocks left over? Why doesn't Jackie divide them into the columns too?
When Jackie can no longer divide the remaining rocks evenly into the cups, she has carried the division as far is it will go (since she cannot cut rocks into pieces). The number of rocks left in the bag is called the remainder.

Remainders can be written in several ways. A common way to express a remainder is with the letter 'R.' For example, in Jackie's problem, the quotient and remainder can be written the following ways:

17 R2 or 17 r2

  1. John has a bag of 50 marbles to share equally among his two brothers and himself. Help him use Jackie's Column Method to figure out how many marbles each gets.
    1. Draw and label the columns John needs to solve this problem.
    2. “Fill” the columns equally.
    3. How many marbles did each brother get?
    4. How many marbles are left over?
    5. What should John do with the leftover marbles?

Use the Column Method to solve the problems on the Dividing Into Columns pages in the Student Activity Book.