Turning the Tables on Multiplication (Part 3)

In the last session we learned that by learning nothing off by heart, we could reduce the number of number facts to be learned off from 121 to 35.  For me, that’s not good enough so in this session I’m going to reduce them by another 8 so we’ll be down to 27.  After that, I’ll show you a couple of games you can play with dice, cards and number magnets.

Many teachers, after teaching the 0, 1 and 2 tables, would move on to the 3 times tables.  Not me.  Next on the list is the 10 times tables.  And yes, there’s an easy rule for that:

When multiplying by ten, add a zero to the number.

Easy, no?  So 2×10=20, 5×10=50, 12×10=120, 32×10=320… the kids love “knowing” the big numbers.  Their favourite is 10 x 1,000,000 for some reason.  Let’s check out our chart.

Not bad.

Before we finish, here’s a shopping list for consolidating the tables you’ve learned so far.  You’ll need:

• a box of plastic numbers
• a 10 sided dice marked 0 to 9 OR 1 to 10 (It’s impossible to get 11-sided dice)
• a modified 6-sided dice – cover the 3, 4, 5 and 6 with 0, 1, 2 and 10
• a packet of playing cards minus the picture cards

I usually have 3 stations – a dice station, a card station and a numbers station.  When we learn a few more tactics, I add in a computer station.  Multiplication.com is a great web site for consolidation but I don’t think they need it yet.

Station 1 is the dice game.  Using a ten sided dice and modified six-sided dice, children take turns rolling the two dice and writing down the number fact they roll.  For example, if they roll a 2 and an 8, they write 2×8=16 in their copy.  It’s also important that they say the fact as they write it to give it a multisensory approach.  This means a noisy classroom, but classrooms shouldn’t be too quiet anyway.

Station 2 is the card game.  Divide the cards into two piles.  The first pile should have the hearts and the diamonds of the following numbers: A, 2 and 10.  The second pile should be the rest of the cards.  The child picks up two cards then writes and says the full number fact.  The Ace is counted as number 1.  if you want to use one of the picture cards as a zero, go for it!

Station 3 is the plastic numbers.  Similarly to the card game, have two boxes – one filled with zeros, ones and twos; and the other with the rest of the numbers.  You know the rest of the drill.

For each each station, give the children between 3 and 5 minutes.  This gives them between 10 and 20 minutes of consolidation, which is a lot!

In the next few lessons, we’ll look at more rules before we get down to some of the harder tables.  At this stage, I wonder could you guess the hardest table to learn?  Do you think it’s 6×8 or 6×7?  I’ll keep you guessing.

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More From Anseo.net

• Turning the Tables on Multiplication (Part 2)
• Turning the Tables on Multiplication (part 4)
• Turning the tables on multiplication (Part 6)

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Posted by Simon on May 4 2010 Filed under Maths. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry