"A Remainder of One" by Elinor J. Pinczes
Houghton Mifflin, 1995
This short story would be a great introduction or review for the concept of remainders. As 25 ants march in even lines, poor Joe just keeps getting left out, much to the dismay of the Queen. He tries to rearrange the infantry, so that there are 3 lines, and then 4, but he is still the odd ant out: Joe is the remainder of 1. Finally, Joe figure out that if he puts the 25th infantry into 5 equal lines, there will be no remainder, and he can be included in the march!
Here are some suggested activities to do with your child during or after reading:
1. Make predictions! See if you child can figure out what will happen with each shift in the infantry's formation. Knowing that there are 25 ants, will changing from 2 lines to 3 lines keep Joe from being excluded? What about going into 4 lines? 5 lines? Is there more than one way to arrange the 25 ants so that there are no remainders? What if there were 35 ants?
2. Play the ant line challenge! Pick a manipulative to represent ants, such as pennies, bottle caps, or cubes. Give yourself and your child an equal number of units, and see who can put them into equal lines first. If it is a prime number (it is not possible to divide it equally, without a remainder), player should put the units into one long line, declaring that it is the only possible combination. You can choose to either play you vs. your child or your child against the clock. Make the game more challenging by doing two or three groups in a row.
3. Help your child write their own remainder story! Your child sould choose their own topic, like making even teams at recess, and try different numbers, using "A Remainder of One" as a guide for their story line. Once they have written their story, have your child illustrate each page (representing the division in a picture).
Here are some suggested activities to do with your child during or after reading:
1. Make predictions! See if you child can figure out what will happen with each shift in the infantry's formation. Knowing that there are 25 ants, will changing from 2 lines to 3 lines keep Joe from being excluded? What about going into 4 lines? 5 lines? Is there more than one way to arrange the 25 ants so that there are no remainders? What if there were 35 ants?
2. Play the ant line challenge! Pick a manipulative to represent ants, such as pennies, bottle caps, or cubes. Give yourself and your child an equal number of units, and see who can put them into equal lines first. If it is a prime number (it is not possible to divide it equally, without a remainder), player should put the units into one long line, declaring that it is the only possible combination. You can choose to either play you vs. your child or your child against the clock. Make the game more challenging by doing two or three groups in a row.
3. Help your child write their own remainder story! Your child sould choose their own topic, like making even teams at recess, and try different numbers, using "A Remainder of One" as a guide for their story line. Once they have written their story, have your child illustrate each page (representing the division in a picture).
"Mega-Funny Division Stories" by Dan Greenberg
Scholastic, 2002
These comical stories introduce topics of division including: terms such as divisor, quotient, and dividend, the relationship between multiplication and division, division facts, division patterns, estimation, problem-solving, and more (through both story context and pictures/diagrams). One story, for instance, tells the tale of Carl the Magnificent, Wanda the Powerful, and Chuck the Friendly, who all have different ideas about how to spilt up the 6 pigs given to them by the Queen. Carl wants to keep 4 pigs for himself, giving one to each of the other children. Wanda wants to keep 3 pigs, giving 2 pigs to Carl and only 1 to Chuck. Chuck, however, has the brilliant idea to split up the pigs evenly and fairly, giving 2 to each child. Each short story is accompanied by practice worksheets that further explore the units from the story (an answer key is included in the index).