Learning All About Multiplication

For the past few weeks we have been immersed in multiplication… We’ve used dinosaurs to create arrays.

We’ve also used some cubes…

We’ve made a few mistakes along the way as shown in the picture above. But the mistakes don’t bother me because that’s how we grow and learn. The errors have helped me see where my students have misconceptions.

For example, one mistake that I caught many of my students making was while modeling arrays for the zero family. Can you imagine my surprise.

I knew that my class understood that zero times any number is zero, but when I saw these mistakes I knew we needed a moment…

I soon realized that they were not thinking through the significance of 0x2 , but rather working on autopilot… “4x0 means 4 counters going down and then add zero more to each row”.

I’ve found that sometimes students have become so accustomed to learning a bunch of rules and following them, that they forget to ask themselves “does my answer make sense”.

So we took a moment to regroup, reflect, and correct our errors.

Throughout our work with multiplication we also found it helpful to use this form to keep track of ALL of the different ways to show multiplication.

I’ve even seen a few students referring back to it when they’ve been struggling. (You can snag yourself a FREE copy by clicking on the picture)

… Stay tuned for the next few days when I tell you all about my favorite multiplication lesson when the Distributive Doctors visit room 108!

Hugs,

:0) Melissa