In order to ride the Dare-Devil roller coaster at the Carnival, there must be two kids in each seat. But what if you're part of a group of 11 best friends? Ten kids will fit in five seats, but what do you do about the one who's "left over"? Meanwhile, chairs on the Satellite Wheel seat three, which means two best friends will be left over. Every ride presents a problem. Can the kids figure out how to fill all the seats so that everybody gets to ride?
Understanding the meaning of remainders in simple division problems is a precursor to solving more difficult division problems.
Illustrated by George Ulrich.
Encourage your child (or students) to tell the story using math vocabulary: number of kids "per" seat, "divide," and "left over." Introduce words such as "groups of," "sets of," and "remainder."
Draw stars to represent the 11 best friends as shown on the math summary pages of the text. YOu can also use pennies or pebbles to represent the friends. Together, practice grouping the "friends" into sets of 2s, 3s and 4s. Are there any friends left over? How many?
Take another look at the story. What if the group of 14 new best friends went to the carnival together? How many seats would they fill on each ride? Would there be any friends "left over"?
