Even though division isn't formally taught until children are in third and fourth grade we tell them to share things every day (dividing things among each other)--so why not touch on the subject whenever it comes up?
As a little activity to do with small groups bring a dollar (or use play money) for each small group. They only have one dollar to share between three or four people in each group. How will they share it?
If there are four in the group the students might know very quickly that everyone in the group will get a quarter ($0.25), but if it is a group of three sharing it they may find that they will each get $0.33 after passing out the dimes and pennies. Then they can see they still have 1 cent left over.
The nice thing about using money is that it is a base ten system while dividing an apple or orange might be division but it makes it a little bit more challenging to find the decimal form for the division problem (that is another lesson).
Next week I am going to try and make my posts earlier : ) Wish me luck!
