In prior lessons, students learned that multiplying by decimals is the same process as multiplying by whole numbers, with the exception of one additional factor – that decimals are whole numbers divided by a power of ten.
Students use this knowledge to understand the placement of the decimal point in the standard algorithm for multiplication.
In this lesson they extend that knowledge further to understand the division of decimal numbers by whole numbers using the standard algorithm.
All division problems result in a terminating decimal, which means there is no remainder after the division is complete.
In this lesson, students learn to divide a decimal number by a whole number as they did in the prior lesson, with one exception. In this lesson, the division of the whole numbers results in a remainder, which means that the division must be extended to smaller place values in the decimal. Students learn to divide when this is the case.
In the two prior lessons, students learn to divide a decimal number by a whole number using the standard algorithm. In this lesson they extend what they learned in those lessons to learn to divide a whole number by a decimal number.