Long division worksheets with grids

The grid is there for place value. The commonest long-division mistake is not a wrong table fact but a digit brought down into the wrong column — the working drifts a place to the left, the quotient comes out a digit short, and the child cannot see why. With a column for each digit there is only one square the brought-down digit can go in, and the quotient digit sits exactly over the digit it divided into.

The grid is the first of three levels of help. The builder can add the minus signs and the rules under each take-away row, so the shape of the method is on the page before the numbers are; and beyond that it can shade the squares a division actually writes in and label the last row R, which is the sheet for the first week. Take the help away a level at a time as the columns start to hold themselves.

The answers were worked out when the problems were, so the key is the same page with the answers drawn in rather than a second attempt at the same questions — there is no way for the two to disagree. The number in the footer is the seed the sheet was built from: it is printed so that the identical sheet can be had again next week, rather than one that merely looks like it.

This page is one sheet out of a family that can print thousands, and the settings behind it — how many problems, how big the numbers get, how they are laid out, whether there is room to work — are all switches. The builder link at the top of the page carries this sheet’s own settings, so the bench opens on exactly the sheet here rather than on a blank one.

The configuration travels in the address bar rather than on a server, so the link can be bookmarked or sent to somebody as it stands — and what they open is this sheet, down to the seed, rather than another one like it.

A long division is a stack of table facts with subtraction in between, and the grid only holds the columns. The Grid drills the facts themselves.