Third Grade Division with Remainders: Practice Drills

How Can My Child Practice Third Grade Division With Remainders?

Before your child begins practicing third grade division with remainders, you may want to make sure that he or she knows all the division facts up to 12 because fast recall of these simple facts is essential to success with long division. If you think your child needs a little more practice, you might review division facts using flashcards.

Once your child has demonstrated proficiency with basic division, you can help him or her move on to long division. Show your child the required steps, and make a poster showing each step. Your child can refer to the poster when completing practice problems. In order to master third grade division with remainders, your child likely will need to complete a number of practice problems over a period of several weeks. You could ask his or her teacher for worksheets, or make your own.

Remainders are necessary when the divisor (the number by which another number is being divided) doesn't factor evenly into the dividend (the number that is being divided). For example, consider the problem 16 ÷ 3. Have your child format the problem so that 16 is under the long-division symbol and three is to the left of the symbol. Next, have him or her figure out how many times three can factor into 16. Because 3 x 5 = 15, it can factor in five times. So, have your child write five on top of the long-division symbol. Then, have your child determine the remainder by subtracting 15 from the divisor. The remainder is one, and the answer should be written like this: 5 R1.

Sample Division Problems with Remainders

1. 39 ÷ 9

Nine can factor into 39 four times because 9 x 4 = 36. Then, subtract 39 - 36 = 3. The answer is 4 R3.

2. 91 ÷ 11

The answer is 8 R3. For this problem, 11 fits into 91 eight times because 11 x 8 = 88. After subtracting 91 - 88, there is a remainder of three.

3. 615 ÷ 12

This problem may be more challenging because the dividend is a 3-digit number. Your child will likely have to use trial-and-error to solve it. Remind your child that he or she needs to get as close to 615 as possible. For this problem, 12 x 51 = 612. So the answer is 51 R3.

4. There are 40 people at a party and a cake with 100 slices. After each person has one slice, how many will be leftover?

After dividing 100 ÷ 40, the answer is 2 R20, so there will be 20 slices left.

5. Amy has to read a 104-page book in five days. How many pages will she have to read each day? How many pages will be remaining on the fifth day?

Because 104 ÷ 5 = 20 R4, Amy has to read 20 pages a day, and on the fifth day, there will be four pages remaining.