Multiplication: Week Two

Day 1: Multiplication Storybook Problems

Seat the students on the floor with a marker, tissue, and dry erase paddle. Read Humbug Rabbit by Lorna Balian (or another seasonably appropriate book) and stop to ask students multiplication problems throughout. (Example: Mother and Father Rabbit have five rabbit children. How many feet do five rabbits have?) Students should write the multiplication problem (either 4 x 5 = 20 or 5 x 4 = 20 would be correct) on their dry erase paddle and show it to the class. Continue reading the story and stopping for multiplication problems until you reach the end of the story.

Day 2: Review and Commutative Property

Briefly review the multiplication facts we've learned so far. (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10.) Remind students that they can find the answers to threes and fours by skip counting. Play an Around the World multiplication game. Set chairs in two rows facing each other with one extra chair at the head of the rows. (You'll need an ODD number of people for this to work, so play yourself if necessary.)

X X X X X

________X (head chair)

X X X X X

Students sit in the chairs and are given a multiplication flash card. When the person in the head chair says "go", one line asks their multiplication question and the other line answers. (Tell students that they're going to be the expert on their card, so they need to help their partner figure it out any time their partner has trouble.) Then the other line asks their question and the first line answers.

When both sides have asked and answered, players advance one seat clockwise. They are now in front of a new partner with a new question (and a new person is saying "go"), so rows take turns asking and answering again. Continue playing until students have gone all the way around the circle. Give each of the students a new card and play the game again.

If there's time for a third round, have students think of their own problem (anything 0-5 or 10 is fair game.) You can also introduce the commutative property by having them ask the reverse of the question printed on their card (e.g. 7 times 2 rather than 2 times 7.) Save the flash cards to use on day 3.

Day 3: Nines and Review

Teach the students their nine times tables by learning the nines trick. (Show the video to the students if possible.)

Review multiplication facts by putting students in groups of two or three and having them play the Multiplication Board Game. (You can use any multiplication flash cards for the game cards; just make sure all the cards in play are facts the students have learned.)

Day 4: The Big Test!

Give the students their final multiplication test. Students who finish early can work on a multiplication math maze or multiplication coloring page.

Give the students their multiplier's licenses and teach them how to use the multiplication table on the back. Congratulate the students on working so hard and learning so much.

Multiplication: Week One

Day 1: Zeros and Ones

Show the students your driver's license and ask them the following questions:

What is this? [A driver's license]
What does it mean? [You're allowed to drive and you know what you're doing.]
How did I get it? [By learning how to drive, learning all the rules, and then passing a test.]

You can't get your driver's license until you're sixteen, but there's another kind of license that you can get earlier. Most kids don't get it until they're in third grade, but you have learned so much math and worked so hard that we're going to see if you can get yours in FIRST GRADE!
We're going to work on multiplication for the next two weeks, and learn all the rules to follow. If you pass a test at the end, I will give you your very own multiplier's license. (Take a picture of each student at some point during the unit to put on their multiplier's license.)

Introduce the "×" symbol. What does this mean? Why do some people call multiplication
"times"? (Because you're adding that number together a certain number of times.) We are going to learn two whole sets of times tables today, and I promise you can all learn them.
Write some zero multiplication problems on the board. Teach the students the proper
words for reading these number sentences. (e.g. "x times y equals z.")
Teach the students that no matter what they multiply by zero, the answer is always zero. You can make this fun/funny by using word variables. (e.g. "What's zero times banana?" "Zero!")

Teach multiplication by one in the same manner. No matter what I multiply by one, it stays the same. Tell them that these two are both very easy, but they're also easy to mix up! Have the students sit in a circle for a short game. (What about zero times one? Does it follow both rules?)

Tell them that this is the lightning round, and they have to answer their questions as quickly as possible. Walk around the outside of the circle and ask students 0's and 1's
multiplication questions in turn. If they get it right, they get a small treat (like a chocolate chip or
Skittle.) The faster they go, the more chance they'll have for treats. (But try to emphasize accuracy too!)

Day 2: Twos and Review

Review doubles addition facts using the "lightning round" game from Day 1. Did you know that if you can add doubles, you can do 2's multiplication? Draw examples on the whiteboard to illustrate that multiplying by two is doubling (which we already know how to do!) Say multiplication problems aloud and have students use unifix cubes to model them. (Can you show me two groups of five? What number sentences can I write on the board that show this? (5 + 5
= 10, and 2 × 5 = 10.)

When the students seem comfortable with this concept, briefly review 0's and 1's (and model with unifix cubes if there's time), then tell them that they're doing so well that they're ready for their first test.


Day 3: Threes and Fours

Give each student a handful of unifix cubes (~24) and ask them to line them up in groups of three. If they have one or two left over that don't fit into a group of three, they can put them back in the box. If we want to quickly see how many cubes you have, a good way to do that is multiplication or skip counting! Since every group has three in it, we'll find the answer if we skip-count by threes. (You may want to model this with one student's blocks or on the white board.) (If students are unsure about counting by threes, write the numbers on the whiteboard for reference.) Ask the students to skip-count their blocks by threes, then go around the circle and tell how many you had. (All numbers should be multiples of three.)

That's all we have to do to multiply by threes! Teach students that skip counting is another way of doing multiplication. If we want to know what three times six is, we can skip count by threes until we get to the sixth number (3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18!)

Repeat the exercise for fours- line up unifix cubes in groups of four (discard any remainders), practice skip-counting your groups, and tell how many you had. (Answers should be multiples of
four this time.)

Give students the skip-counting worksheet. Show them (either on the worksheet or on the board) that when they have the skip counting lines done, they can just count over to do their
multiplication like we did earlier!

Day 4: Fives and Tens (Multiplication with Coins and Clocks)

Review 10 times tables. ("Just add a zero!") Review skip-counting by fives and how to find the answer to 5's multiplication problems using this method.

Give each student a handful of dimes and nickels and an index card. Tell them that you're going to pull items out of the bag and tell them the price. (Or have students take turns pulling an item out of the bag and announcing the price.) Students will then need to put the correct number of dimes and nickels on their card to represent the price. Have students check their neighbors to make sure that everyone is figuring things out. On the smaller-priced items, ask students to show the price using just dimes, then the same one using just nickels.

If you have extra time, review telling time (to five minute increments). Tell students that if they learn their five times tables, telling time will be even easier! Then instead of counting all the way around the clock, they can do the multiplication problem in their head to find the number of minutes. Practice this with the small clocks.

Encourage students to practice over the weekend. We're going to have a practice test on Monday so we can get our multiplier's licenses!

Multiples of 10

Day One – Multiples of 10 – What are they?
Using cubes/counters represent a given number. Can you split that number of cubes into piles of 10 with none left over? If so, that number is a multiple of 10. Practice with several numbers – multiples and not (write them on the white board so students can see the numbers to decide about the pattern). Do you see a pattern/something similar about each number that is a multiple of 10? Describe the rule/pattern. (Numbers that end in 0 are multiples of 10)
Teach the students that to know what numbers are multiples of a number, just count by that number. (For example, to know what numbers are multiples of ten, just count by tens.)
Play slapjack with cards. Each player gets a “deck” of index cards with numbers on them.
Partner up. Players take turns flipping over 1 card into the middle. If the card
is a multiple of 10, the first player to slap it wins the stack. The goal is to capture all your opponent’s cards.

Day Two – Practice Adding 10 to a number
Briefly review yesterday’s lesson. Today we will practice adding 10 to a number. Each pair gets their own game board of chutes and ladders. Players alternate spinning the spinner and advancing as normal and rolling a die and advancing by that multiple of ten. (Example: if you rolled a four, you'd move up 40 spaces.)
* Final challenge round (if time)– figure out the answer to this math problem – The zoo had 650 tigers and 1,000 leopards. They sold 230 tigers and 100 leopards. Then they got 60 more leopards and 70 more tigers. How many were there in all?

Day Three – Add 10 to the target number
Today we’ll be having a race like Family Feud. Split into 2 teams – sit together in circles on the floor. Distribute a dry-erase paddle, marker, and tissue for erasing to each member of the team. We’ll be taking turns answering a number about multiples of 10. Everyone should write the answer on his or her dry erase paddle. When it is your turn, you’ll be showing your paddle to the teacher to determine whether or not your team will receive a point.
**I’ll tie in pennies and dimes today while doing this review activity.
*Final Challenge Round (if time) – As a team – add multiples of 10 to these numbers then order them greatest to least. (30, 70, 140, 330, 320, 590)

Day Four – Adding Multiples of 10
Pass our hundreds boxes and paper with addition problems. Use color chips/cubes to represent the number then add multiples of 10 to show the new number. Do a total of 10
problems front/back.
*Final Challenge Round (for fast-finishers)– revisit the day’s activity using subtraction.