A short instructional video (spoken transcript) by Ellie explaining how to teach pupils to divide whole numbers by powers of ten using place-value charts and manipulatives. It links the operation to multiplication (digits shift right for ×10/100/1000) and demonstrates with worked examples using 9,000 ÷ 10 = 900, 9,000 ÷ 100 = 90, and 9,000 ÷ 1,000 = 9. The guidance emphasizes placeholders (zeros) and using base-10 blocks to reinforce understanding.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Ellie. And in this video, we're going to recap how you can help pupils understand what happens when they're dividing large numbers by ten, hundred and one thousand. So with division of numbers by ten, hundred and thousand, you really want to have a place value chart to hand. There are obviously lots of other practical resources you might use. You might have cubes, and you can have base 10 to help reinforce the concept. But let's start here with our place value chart. Now, you want to link it to multiplication. If pupils have been working on multiplying by ten hundred and one thousand, they would have seen that when we times something by 10, it moves a space to the right. For example, if I have the number two, if I multiply that by 10, my two moves to the tens column, and I put a zero in here as a placeholder in the ones column. So two times by 10 becomes 20. Now, you want to link that understanding to division. So pupils need to understand that when they're dividing by ten, hundred and thousand, the inverse is happening. So rather than the digits moving to the right, they're actually going to move to the left. So we can start with a nice, easy example of this. So let's begin with the number 9,000. Before you get the pupils to divide it, you might just want to recap the value of each of those digits so that they understand that this nine here represents nine thousands. Again, you could use your base 10 to help represent the size of that number. So to begin with, if I want to divide my Number here by 10, you need your pupils to understand that this is going to move one space to the right. You then might ask them, so is that my number? Is it nine by itself? What else do I need to do? And hopefully pupils will recognize that they need to put in a zero as a placeholder in the tens and the ones column. Then, when we move on to dividing by 100, pupils need to understand that the digits move two spaces to the right. And you can reinforce this understanding by explaining that as well as dividing by 100, you're dividing by 10 and and then by 10 again. So if I divide by 9,000 by 100, my 9 moves two places over and goes into the tens column. So 9,000 divided by 100 is 90. And then the last step we're going to go to in this video is dividing by 1000. So as you can see, you see this pattern, and hopefully pupils will start to understand what's happening. The digit is going to move three spaces to the right this time. So it's going to come down into our ones column. So 9,000 divided by 1,000 is nine. So hopefully, by using the place value chart and getting pupils to understand that digits move to the right when you're dividing, that will really help to develop those skills, which are so useful when they go on to dividing other large numbers.
