Fifth Grade Division Problems: Practice for Fifth Grade Math Students

How to Write Division Problems

Before creating practice problems for your fifth grader, you might need a brief refresher on math terms related to division, such as 'dividend,' which is the number that's being divided. The 'divisor' is the number by which the dividend is being divided. So, in the problem 123 ÷ 45, 123 would be the dividend, and 45 would be the divisor. The answer to this problem, which is the number of times the divisor can go into the dividend, is the 'quotient.' Also, when a dividend does not divide equally by the divisor, there will be a 'remainder.' In the case of 123 ÷ 45, the quotient would be 2 with a remainder of 33 (or 2 R33).

In fifth grade, long division problems might first involve dividing a multi-digit dividend by a 1-digit divisor. For instance, 323 ÷ 7. As the school year progresses, students will move on to dividing 4-digit numbers by 2-digit numbers; for example, 3,230 ÷ 17. And the numbers will only increase from there.

When formatting practice sheets for you child, be sure to leave plenty of work space on each page because long division requires a lot of scratch work. Also, you may want to write the problems by hand since it can be difficult to properly format a long division problem on the computer.

Division Problems by Difficulty

One-Digit Divisors

1. 331 ÷ 4 (Answer: 82 R3)

2. 605 ÷ 5 (Answer: 121)

3. 876 ÷ 2 (Answer: 438)

4. 233 ÷ 3 (Answer: 77 R2)

Encourage your child to show his or her work. This may help him or her avoid becoming dependent on a calculator.

Two-Digit Divisors

1. 3,200 ÷ 22 (Answer: 145 R10)

2. 3,649 ÷ 51 (Answer: 71 R28)

3. 7,655 ÷ 15 (Answer: 510 R5)

4. 1,601 ÷ 80 (Answer: 20 R1)

The more numbers that are included in a long division problem, the messier your child's work may become. You can take this opportunity to emphasize the importance of keeping his or her work neat and organized. This also can help your child's teacher when he or she is grading the work.

Word Problems

1. During the summer, Casey earns money by washing cars. He can wash 3 cars an hour. If he has 30 cars to wash, how long will it take him? (Answer: 10 hours)

2. Jenny is saving up money for an airplane ticket. The ticket is $325, and she wants to buy it in 6 months. How much money does she have to save every month to afford the ticket? (Answer, rounded to the nearest hundredth: $54.17)

3. A store has a sale on necklaces. There are 141 in stock. If 47 people want to buy a necklace, how many necklaces would each person have to buy for the store to sell out? (Answer: 3 necklaces)

4. Over the summer, Bill has three months to read a book that is 1,587 pages long. How many pages must he read per day to finish the book on time? (Answer: 529)

Including a few word problems on your practice sheets can present a challenge for your child. However, it's important that he or she learn to work with this format since word problems often are included on standardized tests. They also can serve as examples of how math is applied in everyday life.