Multiplication by arrays

Hi there,

I just wanted to share a resource that made my life so easy today! I stood there, looking around the room at all of my children, in pairs, ON TASK for 20 minutes, walking around to different stations. 

We were using these multiplication by arrays task cards from Tucker's Mama. You can download them FOR FREE from her TPT store. Well worth it! 

There are 24 task cards. I stuck them up around the classroom and divided the children into pairs. I placed each pair at odd-numbered stations (so there is space between each pair) and they worked together to solve the multiple choice questions on the cards. The free pack includes an answer sheet for the children and a solution sheet for the teacher. Then, the children swapped sheets and corrected their peers' work (obviously this was re-checked by me afterwards!). The children loved getting up and moving about and really enjoyed this introduction to multiplication.

Another lovely thing to use when teaching arrays is Lego bricks. 

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I also like to get the children to roll a dice and then show an array of those two numbers. They can draw it in any way - footballs, hearts, smilies or create it using toys, counters, pasta.