How I Would Teach Equal Sharing in Kindergarten

November 2, 2026

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Hi friends,

If equal sharing is a new topic in your Kindergarten planning this year, you’re not alone. Some teachers have been teaching this topic for a few years, but it was officially added to the curriculum when the Ontario Kindergarten 2026 curriculum was released. It’s under A6. Number Sense and Operations, and the specific expectation is A6.9: solve equal-share problems using concrete materials.

I want to be upfront about something. Equal sharing wasn’t part of the Kindergarten program when I was in the classroom, so I never taught it to my own students. What I’m sharing here is how I would teach it, based on my years teaching Kindergarten math and what I know about how young children learn. I used that to write a three-day lesson sequence. As always, please adapt it to your students and your classroom.

A note on language

As always, I would keep the vocabulary simple. Equal means the same. I’d say “fair” where it makes sense, like when we’re sharing between people. Sharing between two friends is a fair share, and it’s equal too.

Day 1: What does equal mean?

I’d start in a circle with something familiar, like four stuffed animals, toy cars or dolls. I’d ask two students sitting next to each other: “If you two want to share these, how many would each of you get so it’s fair?”

Let a student share their thinking first. Then I’d model it by giving one toy at a time to each child. When all the toys are handed out, we check that both children have the same number. I’d repeat that language (“we give one at a time,” “we check that they’re equal, the same number”) with different students and different items, such as 6 cubes between 3 students or 8 counting bears between 2.

Day 2: Make it Equal

Make it Equal bear den mats with counting bears, number cards on binder rings and magnetic numbers

On day two I’d move from toys to a story-like set-up with bear dens. Students count out a number of bears and share them one at a time into the dens: “We have 2 bears and 2 dens. How many bears do we put in each den so that both dens have an equal number of bears?” Then they check, and complete the sentence “Each den gets ___.”

The cards are colour-coded to match each mat. That way students only ever have numbers that can be shared equally, with no leftovers yet, and they can work independently. After the lesson, this becomes a centre.

Day 3: Sharing cookies, with leftovers

Sharing cookies mat with a cookie dice and friends dice, paper plates with three cookies each and magnetic numbers

On day three I’d introduce leftovers. We roll a cookie dice and a friends dice to build the sentence “Share ___ cookies between ___ friends.” I pick a student to come to the front and share the cookies onto paper plates, one at a time, and fill in “Each friend gets ___. Leftover: ___.”

I’d make sure to do at least one example with leftovers together. Say we roll 6 cookies and 4 friends. We share 1, 1, 1, 1, and then we notice we don’t have enough to share the rest equally, so there are 2 leftover.

Recording the thinking

Let’s Share cut-and-paste mini book pages showing cupcakes shared between two friends

Once students have had practice with manipulatives, a cut-and-paste mini book gives them a way to record their thinking and understanding. They read the problem (for example, “Share 4 cupcakes with 2 friends”), glue or draw the cupcakes into each friend’s box, and complete the sentence. A leftover page is included if you want that extra practice.

Make it Equal pizza printable pages with plates and pizza slices to cut out, next to scissors, glue and a pencil

If you’d like to try a recording page with your students right away, I made a free printable you can use alongside these lessons. In Make it Equal: Sharing
Pizza Slices, students share slices of pizza between kids one at a time. They cut out the slices, glue them onto the plates and complete the sentence “Each kid gets ___ slices of pizza.”

There are three pages: 2 kids with 6 slices, 3 kids with 6 slices, and 3 kids with 9 slices. Each one shares equally with no leftovers, so they work well with Day 2 or as extra practice at a centre.

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