I also try another way to explain it. I choose one child and give him imitation currency of 50 dollars. I then tell the child to find out how many groups of zero dollars he can make?
All the children find that this also is an absurd activity, activity which cannot be managed. They are able to provide their reasoning after many examples. Some say, 'forming groups of zero is impossible!' Others react, 'if we keep on subtracting zero dollars from 50 dollars, 50 dollars would remain as they are. It means we are not dividing these anyway!'
Next I ask them to generalize their observation. They state that dividing by zero is impossible. However, mathematically it is stated as 'divisor should never be zero, as the result it undefined'.
Zero divided by zero
The moment I write '0 รท 0 = ?' the answer that I receive is always 1. In this situation I always remind them that we have seen that the 'divisor should never be zero, as the result it undefined'. Therefore, whatever is the dividend, dividend divided by zero will be undefined.
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