Visually dividing a whole number by a decimal

In this video, we're going to see if we can compute what 3 divided by 0.75 is equal to. And I'll give you a little bit of a hint before I tell you to pause the video.

So let's imagine three holes right over here. What if we were to think of these three wholes, these three ones, in terms of hundredths? Well then, once we express these as hundredths, we could say, well, how many groups of 75 hundredths can we divide this into? How many equal groups of 75 hundredths?

To help you think about that, here's a little bit of a visualization where three is divided into equal groups of 75 hundredths. So pause this video and use what I have, this little visual here, as a big hint to figure out what 3 divided by 75 hundredths is.

All right, now let's do it together. As I said, we started with three ones or three wholes, however you want to think about it. You could think of division by 75 hundredths as saying, well, how many equal groups of 75 hundredths can you divide these three holes into?

So we thought about these three holes in terms of hundredths. The way it's been color-coded, it actually has already been divided into four equal groups of 75 hundredths. You can count these. So this is 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, and then five hundredths.

So this right over here is one group of seventy-five hundredths. Then, in green, you have another group of seventy-five hundredths. So you have 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, and then 75. So that right over, let me just color it, I can see this right over here is our second group.

This is our first group right over there, and then that's our third group. These are all equal groups of 75 hundredths, and that's our fourth equal group of 75 hundredths in the green again.

So, how many equal groups of 75 hundredths can you divide three wholes into? Well, clearly, it is equal to four.