Prior to this lesson, students have interpreted and represented division in terms of making equal-size groups. In this lesson, they revisit the two interpretations of division and recall that the divisor can be seen as either the number of groups or the size of each group.

Students use base-ten blocks and diagrams to analyze and represent division expressions such as and . They see that, depending on the numbers involved, one interpretation of division may be more useful or productive than the other.

Students also recognize that it is helpful to use tens and ones to make equal groups (for example, to think of 84 as 8 tens and 4 ones, rather than 84 ones), and to decompose tens into ones as needed.