Mulitiplication Fun!

I love, love, love teaching multiplication!   The kids love it because they feel so "big" and there are so many fun activites to go with it.   One of my favorite resources is Amy Lemon's Muliplication Strategies packet.  Find it here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Multiplication-Situations-Unit .

We did several of her activities including the mushroom activity, the snowball activity, sticker arrays and my favorite - the bracelet activity.  I purchased this great set of pony beads at Wal-Mart for like $12

 

I love that the set of beads is actually an ARRAY - hello!   My kids were pumped up when I brought these out. 

 

I explained to them that I was opening a bead shop.  Each bead in the shop would cost .50.   I gave each child an imaginary budget of $15 to spend and they had to figure out how many beads they could buy.   The quickly determined they could buy 30 beads.   I then explained that they could choose as many colors as they wanted...BUT each color had to have exactly the same number of beads.   I then gave them this little worksheet I had created to plan their bracelet (I actually gave them two pages but condensed it here into one). If you would like a copy - you can get one free here:

 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Multiplication-Bracelet-Plan

 





I sent them to their seats and they had to go plan.   It was so interesting to watch their little minds go to work.  It was a good indicator to me to see who was really getting it as well.   Several of my students immediately started with the thirty and broke it down by dividing (which is awesome because we have not even talked about that yet) and others worked up.   A couple of my kids chose to use very few beads their multiplication bracelet because they found a combo that worked and they couldn't seem to go past that (gave me a list of whom to call to the table to work with after the activity).  

After they had finished their plans,  I provided each child with a pipe cleaner and a plastic cup to carry their beads.   The built their bracelets and were so proud to wear them home.   I got a few sweet emails from parents telling me how their children explained their bracelets to them.   I loved that!

Here are some pictures of how they turned out.

 

Hope your weekend is awesome!