Divide by 1000
for 5th grade

Divide by 1000

In this topic you are asked to divide numbers by 1000 without using a calculator. Because our number system is base 10, we can use simple techniques to divide by multiples of 10 like 1000. What we essentially do is shift the number to be divided three place value columns to the right.

Consider the number 7654. We know that the decimal point comes after the unit digit, so we could think of the number as 7654.000. Moving each digit of our number 7654 three places to the right past the decimal point (that stays still) gives us 7.654.

Another way of thinking about it is to keep the number static and move the decimal point - in this case three places to the left, one for each of the zeros in 1000.

You can think of dividing by a multiple of 10 as the opposite of multipying by a multiple of 10 where you would shift the target number a certain number of place value columns to the left (or move the decimal point the same number of digits to the right).