Multiplication dominated the curriculum throughout the month of January as the students played games, conducted investigations, and explored multiples and divisibility.

The game of Rectangles is a wonderful, concrete and visual way to explore and review multiplication as a rectangular array. Students love playing the game. Product shot is another great game for practicing the multiplication facts as well as one’s addition skills. Both of these games require a pair of dice and can be played with a partner or independently.

Another great activity to hone and deepen the students’ understanding of number, pattern, and multiplication is with the Times Tables Plaids. In a small group, the fourth and fifth graders shared the task of coloring in a times table grid with the multiples for each of the numbers 2 – 12. As the name suggests, it created some interesting patterns. Students worked on their communication and cooperation skills as they divided up the numbers and completed each of the 11 plaids as a team.

The multiplication tables coloring book is another sweet way to practice and review multiplies and divisibility. Students pick a number from 2 – 12 to work on, list all the multiples through 12 for that number and color in the multiples on a puzzle that will reveal a picture. It’s a great opportunity to emphasize the related nature of multiplication and division and how the multiples of a particular number are all divisible by that number (no left overs).

Mental math and quiet time activities such as Beanstix Algebra, Wrap-Ups, Flip-Overs, and Find X are all helping to reinforce the multiplication facts as well as other math concepts and vocabulary.

Going beyond the basic multiplication facts, the students explored various ways for solving a story problem. It paved the way for multiplying a 2-digit number by a 1-digit number using the standard algorithm. I was pleased with how quickly many of the students picked it up at varying degrees of facility. Those who became confident, did a great job of explaining the process to others. Wonderful to see kids deepening their knowledge and proficiency through teaching others.

Soon, the class will be replacing the addition and subtraction facts quiz with the multiplication one. Having your child practice the facts daily at home is key to mastery.

Everyone seemed to enjoy Toy Day and the students did a fine job of categorizing and graphing the toys that their class had brought in. They created the graph, filled in the categories, graphed the numbers, and figured the fraction that each category represented out of the total.

We’ve also been making observations with our class graph and figuring the fraction of students who fit in each category.

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