The grade 3’s are quickly becoming multiplication experts! First the lessons focussed on understanding and representing multiplication. The children have a great toolkit of strategies to draw on to meet their needs. Some of the ways they can demonstrate their understanding are through making groups, creating arrays, writing repeated addition sentences, writing multiplication sentences, jumping on a number line and drawing diagrams. Next we moved on to mental math skills so that students develop skills to recall facts quickly. Today the class worked on some problem solving to apply their knowledge. I was impressed by the range of strategies used to find solutions. One area that showed room for improvement was “showing their work” or the steps taken to get to the answer (even if it was done with mental math). We will review this tomorrow. Although we are wrapping up the unit this week we will still practice multiplication facts regularly. Below are some links to online games to improve skills. Please keep practising facts up to 7 X 7 at home. Fluency in these facts is important for keeping up in math in the grades ahead and they are very handy in everyday life. Last week I did a lot of multiplying when I ordered school supplies. I needed to determine how many boxes of erasers, pencils, glue sticks  and markers to order for the grade 3 class. Share the ways you use multiplication in your life by commenting on this post.

Times Table Tests, Flashcards, Magnetic Fun
Multiplication Concentration
Math Magician
multiplication.com