What's Left Over? Division with Remainders

Imagine you have 13 strawberries and 4 friends. You want to give each friend the same number. Can you do it perfectly? Think about it for a moment. What happens if there are some strawberries left that you cannot share equally?

Division means splitting a number into equal groups. We use the symbol ÷ to show division. For example, 12 ÷ 3 means 'split 12 into groups of 3'. That works perfectly: you get 4 groups with nothing left over. But sometimes a number does NOT split equally. When that happens, there is a remainder. A remainder is the amount left over after you have made as many equal groups as you can. Here is how to find a remainder in three steps: 1. Ask: how many times does the dividing number fit into the big number? 2. Multiply to find the total you used. 3. Subtract that total from the big number. The answer is your remainder. We write a remainder using the letter r. So if the answer is 3 with 1 left over, we write: 3 r 1. Remember: the remainder is ALWAYS smaller than the number you are dividing by. If it were the same size or bigger, you could fit in one more group!