Introducing Multiplication Conceps

I landed a job teaching third grade right out of college. It seems like I spent the entire year reviewing multiplication facts. We drilled, drilled, and drilled some more. Although it looked like the majority of my students learned their multiplication facts, it was hard to gauge if they actually understood the concept of multiplication. After my first year, I changed schools and began teaching fifth grade. Once again, it seemed like I spent the entire year focusing on our multiplication facts. Once AGAIN, we drilled, drilled, and DRILLED some more.

Now that I am teaching second grade, I have really started thinking about how to teach the concept of multiplication. I don’t start multiplication until later in the school year. However, we address the concept throughout the year.

I have found that discussing real life situations with the kids is the best way to introduce multiplication as a concept. For example, “Sally Sue Pants bought four ice cream cones. Each ice cream cone has three scoops of ice cream on it. How many scoops are there in all?” The first thing we do is to actually draw the picture--we draw four ice cream cones and then add three scoops of ice cream to each cone.

After that, I show them that it is actually a multiplication problem and show them how to write the problem. We repeat this several times. I like to divide a paper into fourths so that we can have eight practice problems (four problems on each side).

After we understand the concept of multiplication, we move onto work that still requires students to draw the problems. Although some may be ready to move on to learning actual multiplication facts at this point, we save those for later. Once we seem to have mastered that, I show them how the problem can be represented as a multiplication problem. The students love being able to write multiplication problems. After adding and subtracting in kindergarten and first grade, it’s exciting for them to be able to write a whole new kind of problem.

Even though we are writing multiplication problems, I really like to be systematic about which problems we start with. I prefer to start with only multiplying by 2’s. Since multiplying by 2’s is a review of adding our doubles, it’s the perfect place to start.

We focus intently on multiplying by 2’s for an entire week. I really like to make sure they have mastered their 2’s before moving on. The eventual target is to have the students solving word problems that require them to apply their multiplication facts. My students seem to solve word problems better when they are allowed to use color pencils. I have always used color pencils while working on the elmo projector. My students asked me if they could use them too, and it has worked really well. They love adding some color to their work.

When solving word problems, we always read through the problem first. Next, we underline the question (this is where the color pencils come in). We then go back and circle any number that we need. Lastly, we solve the problem.

Don’t get me wrong – we still practice our multiplication facts. However, we do not do that until they fully understand the concept. When we start practicing the facts, I only start with 0’s and 1’s. We practice these each morning with our warmup papers for a week. After a week, we test over them (our test day is always Wednesday). If they do well on those, they get a small sticker that they can put on their desk name tag. I strongly suggest starting with the facts that they can easily master. This is the order that I use in my classroom – 0’s, 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, 3’s, and then 4’s. Learning all of these will really help them going into the third grade.

My favorite site for multiplication fact practice pages is Math Drills. I really like this site because it allows you to focus on multiplying by a single number at a time. For example, after we have learned our 0’s and 1’s, we move on to the 2’s. I can easily print pages that contain only x2 problems. I like to print 100 problems a page, but I cut the pages into strips so that they are only practicing 20 or 30 at a time. (This is also great for saving paper).

Feel free to download my Beginning Multiplication FREEBIE to help you get started!

The ONE Thing that Revolutionized my Math Class!

Since I started teaching second grade 10 years ago, we have used several different Math curriculums. No matter what curriculum we are using, this daily “Math Meeting” has been the one constant thing that has helped my instruction. Seriously, it has revolutionized my math class. I have simplified this Math Meeting time throughout the years and have adjusted it to fit our changing standards. By using this format, I am able to do a mini lesson on the date, time, place value, money, writing equations, problem solving, and skip counting – every single day (and usually during a span of 10 minutes)!

This simple “Math Meeting” enables me to cover concepts before we even get to those concepts in our curriculum. Throughout the year we will start new concepts with ease because we have already covered them on a daily basis in our Math Meetings!

I simply write all the parts of the Math Meeting on my white board each morning. This following recording sheet (link below) is used for the students to follow along. I also fill in one of the recording sheets on my elmo while they are filling out their recording sheet. There are 5 spaces on the recording sheet that enables students to complete the Math Meeting each day of the week.

Math Meeting Recording Sheet FREEBIE

The first thing we fill in for the day is the date. We start the year by writing out the date using the month, day, and year. After a few weeks of school, we move to writing our date in numbers.

After the date, we write in the time. This is an excellent way to teach time before we even get to our unit on time!

Next, we fill in our secret number. For the secret number, I draw ten blocks for place value practice.

We start the beginning of the year just counting dimes and pennies. After we’ve mastered that, we add nickels and eventually quarters. Money has to be practiced everyday if students are to master it.

The word problem that I write on the board always varies depending what we’ve been learning. I usually write a word problem that is similar to something that we learned the day before or that they had on their homework. The recording sheet has workspace for the students to show their work and write their answer.

The number of the day is the section that the students seem to like the most. One of my student jobs in my classroom is “Math Meeting.” That person gets to go to the board for the number of the day section. They call on someone to give them the number of the day and they get to record the number on the board. My only rule for the number of the day is that the number cannot be larger than 10. The math meeting person also gets to call on four other students to give them an equation that equals the number of the day. Their job is also to write the equations on the board. You’ll be amazed by the equations that your students will generate by the end of the year. Many of my students will begin to think of multiplication problems as well as two-step problems.

Skip counting is the last thing that we do during our Math Meeting. I usually pick a number to start with and use that same number to start each day during the week. However, what we count by changes every day. We usually count by ones on Monday. On the other days of the week we may count my 2, 5, 10, or count backwards.

When we are done with our Math Meeting the students place the papers in their “Math Meeting” folder so that they can find it the next day.  On Friday, all of the papers are turned in for a daily grade.

This simple Math Meeting has revolutionized my math class!

Teaching Beginning Multiplication

I always try to introduce my second graders to multiplication in the last month of the school year. It is important that my students understand the concept of multiplication before they enter the third grade. Hint: Ask the PE teacher if they can skip count by different numbers while stretching. 3’s and 4’s are tough for them, but if they can skip count by them before we start our unit on multiplication, they will have an easy time mastering the skill.

            Where do I begin? Of course the easiest set of facts is the 0’s. This only takes one lesson. Then, we move on to the 1’s. This only requires one lesson as well.

            I begin the 2’s by explaining that they are just our doubles facts from addition. We also do some sort of drawing activity to help them see what the concept of multiplying looks like. This is really important when they are just starting to learn how to multiply. It also shows them how multiplication is used in real life. I also think that it is really important that they learn them in word problem form.

            We learn our 3’s the same way that we learn our 2’s. Again, skip counting by 3’s daily (and at different times of the day) helps them tremendously.

            We do many of the same sort of drawing activities with our 4’s and 5’s too. Once we have mastered the concept of multiplication, we move on to solving word problems without pictures to help. When solving word problems, we do the following steps. These steps help when moving on to more difficult word problems down the road.

1. 1Read the entire word problem. 
2. Underline the question and understand what they are wanting you to find or solve.
3. Go back and circle only the important numbers that you need to solve the problem.
4. Solve the problem.

            Once we have worked through our 5’s I like to show them a multiplication chart that shows how many of the facts that they know. There are only 25 other facts that are left for them to learn. I generally don’t go past the 5’s for my second graders. Rather, I would prefer them to be confident and completely master the basic facts.

Below is a FREEBIE that you can use in your classroom to help your students learn their basic facts!

 Beginning Multiplication FREEBIE

The complete Beginning Multiplication Unit can be found here:

Beginning Multiplication No Prep Unit