MathBait™ Mastering Multiplication Part 2

Welcome to MathBait™ Multiplication Part 2. In Part 1, we focused on skip counting and building an understanding of how numbers relate to each other. In this edition, students will begin processing two pieces of information: how many in each group and the number of groups. In Part 2 we provide 13 activities and 3 digital games with loads of replay-ability and lots of fun to be had.

Prerequisites

Students should complete MathBait™ Multiplication Part 1. They should be able to fluently skip count by 2, 3, and 5 and be familiar with skip counting by 4, 6, 8, 9, and 10 using the strategies presented and identifying the relationship between numbers. It is totally okay (encouraged even) to spiral between Parts 1 and 2.

Goal

In MathBait™ Multiplication Part 2, students will be introduced to the word multiple and build on their previous understanding of skip counting to identify products. Students need not memorize nor be able to recall all products quickly. In each game and activity they are building fluency through understanding. This will not only help them in the short-term of multiplication, but in the long-term in working with fractions, square roots, factoring, and more.

Select a lesson to view details. We recommend students play in the order provided for graduated levels of fluency. Bookmark this page to easily return for spiral review or a fun change of pace.

Fingers

In this activity, students will begin to translate their understanding of skip counting to multiplication. As the title implies, students are encouraged to use their fingers.

Warm Up: A Riddle

Announce to students you have a riddle for them to solve. You created a new PIN code but forgot to write it down. Being so excited about all the skip counting you've been doing, you developed the PIN code in the following way:

• The first digit was the 4th number you said when counting by 2's

• It was followed by the 5th number you said when counting by 3's

• The final digits came from the 6th number you said when counting by 5's

Allow students time to try to decode the riddle. Encourage them to skip count and track the numbers on their fingers. They should arrive at the code 81530.

If time permits, provide additional riddles for students to practice. Students can also make their own riddles and trade them with a partner to solve.

Activity 1: Magic Trick

Provide students with sortable items (candies, math counters, number blocks, anything will do). Tell them that without counting, only looking at their objects for no more than a few seconds, you will be able to tell them how many they have. Allow students to select the number of items they wish to take and instruct them to organize their items into groups of their choice (2's, 3's, or 5's) and determine how many items they have in total.

When students have completed their organization, demonstrate the magic trick. More magician flair will increase engagement and disbelief! Cover your eyes to ensure there is no cheating and announce their number using the organization of their groups and multiplication.

Explain that skip counting is powerful. This is a power they already have! Now it is time to take their amazing ability to the next level. Today they will practice how to find the total number of items by skip counting. Connecting back to the warm-up, group items into 4 piles of 2. Count the items by 1's to make sure students agree there are 8 items. Then, skip count the piles by 2's and show you still arrive at 8, but more quickly. As you count, raise a finger for each multiple of 2 to show students the fourth number we say when counting by 2's is exactly how many items occur in 4 groups of 2.

If time permits, allow students to play with the idea for 5-10 minutes, making their own piles and counting to see that 6 groups of 3 make 18 total or 7 groups of 2 make 14 total (allow students to explore freely and share what they found).

Activity 2: Fingers

Provide students with a writing utensil and pad. A mini-whiteboard and dry erase marker works great, but anything that allows students to transcribe their number and hold it up will do.

The leader will stand at the front and announce what they are counting by. Write the value for all to see. Turning their back to the players, the leader will count by their value mentally and raise a finger for each number they count. The leader will select when to stop. When students notice the leader has stopped, they must quickly write down the value and hold it up before the leader turns around. All students who have the correct number gain a point and play continues.

For example, if the leader announces they are counting by 2's and stops with 6 fingers up, students should count along by 2's to write down 12, as counting on each of the 6 fingers gives them 2-4-6-8-10-12.

After each round, announce the groups: "We found 6 groups of 2 is 12."

We recommend game-play starts with focusing only on counting by 2's, 3's, and 5's. As students get the hang of things, they can utilize their skip-skip counting to increase the difficulty. When advancing to 4, 6, 8, 9, and 10, pause for a quick round of The Whisper Game. Have students whisper "2" before raising the first finger to call out 4, before raising the second finger whisper "6" and call out 8 when the next finger is raised. This more challenging game can be played later after students have worked with our digital games Fingers and Skip Pop to gain more fluency.

Our digital game is great for independent practice. Game-play follows the same flow, but in the digital game students can watch as the computer counts out the values, reinforcing their understanding.

If students are having trouble skip counting mentally, use the digital version and allow students to continue to skip count aloud. Encourage students to use their own fingers to mimic the game. Remember we are building fluency which does require practice and exposure. However, it is important to celebrate small wins and avoid placing pressure on students. We want them to have fun. They are building their brain muscles and just like other muscles they need to exercise them!

©MathBait created with GeoGebra

Benefits

Students are now starting to understand the idea of multiplication by building on their existing understanding of skip counting. They are strengthening their skip counting skills as they must now skip count silently or "in their head".

Multiplication requires keeping track of two values, the size and number of groups. By using their fingers, students are given an aid to help process the increase in information. Because multiplication is commutative (4×6=6×4), this struggle can go unnoticed in students and can compound to cause errors and anxiety. If your student is struggling, start with a modified version of the game where both the number we are counting by and how many are displayed. For example, if counting by 2's six times, allow students to first raise 6 fingers, then count each finger by 2's. This will help strengthen student ability to process multiple pieces of information at once.

Utilize spiral review. Go back to games in MathBait™ Multiplication Part 1. This acts as a great review but also a confidence builder. With increased exposure, students build confidence when they return to a lower-level game and find it much easier then they did the first time around. Fingers can also be played as a general warm-up.

Bid a Win

In this activity students will use movement to develop multi-directional fluency with skip counting and multiplication. These activities are fun and high-energy which can be great for a Friday or a day where class time is cut short.

Warm Up: The Beat

Place students into three groups. It is helpful to have each group sit in a circle and situate groups as far away from each other as possible, but still within earshot.

Start with simple clapping. The goal is for students to stay on beat (which can be quite challenging so it is okay if everything doesn't work out perfectly, they will still learn and have fun!). Begin clapping a slow and steady beat and have students join in. Once everyone is in-sync (or as close as possible), announce we will now add numbers to our claps. Each clap is counting by 1. Practice a few times clapping and counting. 1-2-3-4-5... to at least 20.

Explain that each group will be assigned a number to count by (2, 3, or 5). The 2's will only call out the numbers we get when counting by 2's. Connect it back to The Whisper Game. If needed, students can continue to whisper the in-between numbers. Similarly, the 3's will only call out the numbers we get when counting by 3's, and same for the 5's. Play a few times to try get everyone in-sync. Ask students if there are any numbers multiple groups both said (6, 10, etc.). Have students hypothesize why this is. Connect back to the activities they previously completed in MathBait™ Multiplication Part 1 when they learned they could count by 4's, 6's etc. by skip-skip counting.

Play a few times before asking students what we should count by to have more numbers in common. Assign groups new values. Give groups a few minutes to strategize together and practice their counting. Teachers can decide what values to give, we recommend the following:

• 2, 3, 5

• 2, 4, 5

• 2, 4, 6

• 2, 5, 10

• 2, 4, 8

Alternate groups so the same group of students don't always have 2. Have students both predict what numbers multiple groups will call out as well as discuss the results afterwards.

The game may very well get out of hand, and there will likely be lots of laughter. It is okay if students aren't able to stay "on beat". The exercise alone has them practicing skip counting, and thinking about how different numbers relate to each other which is a win.

If needed, to calm and recenter students, consider having them quietly fill out a skip counting (multiplication) table before continuing to the next activity.

Activity 1: Bid a Win

Let's build some muscle memory! This game is a pain to set up, but so much fun to play.

Using chalk or tape, mark equally spaced lines on the sidewalk. Ideally we want to have at least 40 lines. Alternatively, if you have access to a football field the yard markings can also work although some modification to the game will be necessary.

Two students play at a time. Provide a target number (16 for example). The first player will make a "bid" on the fewest steps they can take to reach the given number. Their steps must all be the same size.

For example, Player 1 might begin with "I can reach the goal in 16 steps". For each bid, have students explain their reasoning. In this case, steps of 1 will reach the goal. Player 2 might respond with, "I can reach the goal in 8 steps" explaining that if they count by 2's eight times they can make it to 16. Clearly we can get up to, "I can reach the goal in 1 step!". However, it is unlikely a student can stretch over 16 marks in one hop (but if they can - go for it!).

When a player doesn't believe they can outmatch the last bid they announce,"Okay [player], reach the goal!". If the player can reach the goal in the steps bid, they earn a point. If they cannot make the leaps of the size they indicated or if they stumble, the second player earns the point.

Benefits

Younger students love to move, making Bid a Win instant fun. Players are building their multiplication knowledge by having to think about what they can count by to reach the goal. In other words, they are really factoring each number. This is a crucial skill and playing is helping students to develop multiple views on multiplication to support long-term understanding.

Consider keeping a chart of the bids to discuss at the end of the game. For instance, we can land on 16 by counting by 1's, 2's, 4's, 8's, or 16's. Provide students with any support they need and encourage them to skip count. The game also continues to build on Fingers as students must not only determine what value they can count by to reach the goal, but also how many steps it will take.

The Warm Up exercise is also building on these same ideas and helping students to further consider the relationship between numbers.

Hide and Seek

In this activity, students will use a multiplication table allowing them to become more familiar with its setup and how it can be used to find products.

Warm Up: Guess My Number

Remind students of The Beat activity they previously completed. Ask for some examples of numbers we can reach in different ways (for instance, 8 is a number we say when counting by 2's, 4's, and 8's). Tell students you are thinking of a number. You say the number when counting by 3's and when counting by 5's. Can they guess the number?

You may allow students to work in small groups to strategize or individually. Students may practice skip counting by 3's and 5's and list the numbers they say in each. They may find multiple numbers (15, 30, 45, ...).

Next, ask them to narrow down their list by explaining your number can only be achieved by counting by 3's and 5's. That is, if any of their numbers can be achieved by counting by 10's or 9's, it isn't your number.

Students should determine your number must be 15. As 30 can be achieved by counting by 10's and 45 by counting by 9's, those should be eliminated. Some students may struggle with this warm up. Working in groups or asking students to make lists can help organize the information.

Activity 1: Counting by 7's

Provide students with an empty multiplication table and have them complete the cells they have previously learned using skip counting. Work together and announce the row or column and the strategy. (You can find our Skip Counting Printable Table under Rainbow Multiples below).

Students begin with the first row and column, counting by 1's. Then move to the second row and column counting by 2's, then to 3's, and finally to 5's. Next, remind students to skip-skip count with 2's to fill in the fourth row and column, to skip-skip count by 3's to fill in the sixth row and column, and to skip-skip count by 5's for the final column. End with filling in 8's by skip-skip-skip-skip counting and 9's by skip-skip-skip counting (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16... and 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18...).

Direct students' attention to their table. They might be surprised to find it is nearly filled out! Ask students what happened? We never learned to count by 7's, but our 7's are almost all filled in.

Circle back to the warm up and provide each student with 15 items (blocks, counting chips, candies, number blocks; any countable item will do). Ask them to organize their items into groups of 3, how many groups do they have? (5). Count the total by skip counting by 3's (3, 6, 9, 12, 15). Now ask students to organize their blocks into groups of 5, how many do they have? (3). Count the total by skip counting by 5's (5, 10, 15).

Explain that of course we have the same total! We didn't add or take away any of our blocks. Highlight that 15 items can be organized as 3 groups of 5 or as 5 groups of 3. Provide each student with 3 more blocks to now total 18. Place students in pairs and have them each organize their blocks in different ways. Have pairs discuss which they like better (for instance, a student might prefer to organize as two groups of 9 because it then requires less counting while another may prefer organizing as nine groups of 2 because they are more comfortable counting by 2's). Come together as a group to highlight the different choices and ideas. The value of 18 is great because it can be made with 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, and 18 (although one big blob of 18 isn't helpful unless we already know the total as we will need to count the items in some way).

If students need additional practice, they can try with 12 or 24 items as well.

Conclude by telling students that almost every group they can make has a "turn around". A turn around is when we swap the number of groups and how many in each group, such as two groups of 9 and nine groups of 2. See if students can identify a group without a turn around (these are our perfect squares as turning around something like four groups of 4 doesn't change anything). It isn't necessary to introduce squares at this time, only to highlight there exists numbers that can be made from equal numbers of items and groups.

Circle back to the 7's. The reason we have nearly completed the table is although we haven't decided what two groups of 7's would be, they are the same as seven groups of 2's which we already know how to count! Give students time to use the patterns on the table to try to fill in the final spot. The most common strategy is simply counting up 7 from 42.

You may practice counting by 7's aloud but at this time we don't recommend students know how to count by 7's fluently.

Activity 2: Turn Around

This is a fun activity that can be used as students continue to increase their fluency.

Play can happen inside using a piece of paper or outside with chalk. Place students in pairs and have each pair face each other. Between them (on paper or with chalk) write out a number of groups and how many in each group, such as 3 groups of 5. Players should read from left to right. One player will see "3 groups of 5" while the other in the mirrored position will see "5 groups of 3". Have each player skip count to find the total (in this case one student will count 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 while the other will count 5, 10, 15). Then, yell out "turn around!" Players switch positions to now complete their partner's part.

When students are introduced to the formal multiplication sign, the game can be played again using 3×5 and 5×3 instead. Switch up values and play again. Then allow each student to play on their own, starting from one side and jumping to "turn around" and completing the other.

The goal of this activity is to help students see the power of the commutative property of multiplication. The massive multiplication table is cut in half with this power. Have students reflect on which "turn around" they like more. This helps students to self-identify their own strategy.

Activity 3: Hide and Seek

In this activity, a character is hiding within the multiplication table. Students use clues to identify where they are hiding.

The game contains multiple layers of difficulty. We recommend starting with "Show Numbers" checked. This keeps the table visible throughout the game. In the first level, students are provided with a clue such as "Starting at 2, I hopped 10 spaces". Explain to students that we will start on the left and hop to the right (rather than beginning at the top and hopping down). Students locate 2 on the left side and "hop" 10 spaces to the right to land on 20. The game includes clickable cells to help students count if needed.

Once they have selected their value, press the "Look" button. If they made the correct selection, the dragon will appear on the cell and players gain a point. Encourage students to verbally announce the translation. In this case, "10 groups of 2 is 20". Highlight the order. If counting two groups of 10, we would count 10, 20. In this case, to reach the dragon we needed to count 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, meaning we had groups of size 2. The game also provides support as the dragon will announce the number of groups as well.

After students have played, highlight how we can use the numbers across the top to help us navigate. If the dragon started at 4 and hopped 6 spaces, we can look where row 4 and column 6 collide to find their location.

When students earn 10 points, the game will offer to advance to a higher level. In Level 2, the dragon provides riddles like the warm up activity. Remind students the dragon is at a value that can only be reached by the numbers given. For example, if the dragon says "You can find me by counting by 3's or counting by 3's" students might think this can be any number in the 3 row or column. Clarify the dragon is saying it must be in both the row and column. In this case, only the 3×3 cell is correct as it is the only place in both row and column.

In other cases, such as "You can find me by counting by 2's or counting by 5's" there are two options. Students could select 2×5 or 5×2 cells. This part of the game requires some luck. However, the dragon also tells students how many of his number appear on the board. In this case, 10 can be found 4 times. The purpose of this is to encourage students to hunt for numbers on the table and begin to see patterns and recognize duplicate values.

For students who are doing well with Hide and Seek, encourage them to try with "Show Number" unchecked. In this version of the game, the numbers are removed from the table. Students read the clue and select the correct cell. Next, an input box appears on the selected cell and they are asked to determine what number the dragon is on. Students may skip count to determine the number and in time will begin to build enough familiarity to increase their recall speed without counting.

©MathBait created with GeoGebra

Benefits

This lesson introduces students to the commutative property of multiplication helping them to see the connection between values and different approaches to skip counting. They also now are able to fill in a full multiplication table on their own!

Rather than focus on memorizing, we provide them with a table to explore. Still using skip counting as a basis to connect to previous knowledge, by playing Hide and Seek they have the chance to familiarize themselves with the table and its patterns.

Hide and Seek provides multiple levels of difficulty allowing students to play and advance at their own rate. Through play they are becoming more and more familiar and fluent in determining the total (or product). Through practice they will begin to connect these products to their understanding of skip counting, helping to increase their recall ability and speed.

Rainbow Multiples

Let's continue to build student familiarity and fluency with multiples! In this activity, students learn the term multiple. They will use their knowledge from Hide and Seek to identify multiples of a number.

Warm Up: Multiples

Ask students what they think of when they hear the word "multiple". Some students may have heard the word before, such as "you have multiple siblings", and others may have no reference for the word.

Tell students we use the word "multiple" to describe numbers we can skip count by. For instance, 2, 4, 6, and 8 are all multiples of 2 because we call them out when counting by 2's.

Have students practice giving a multiple of numbers less than 10. For instance, ask students "what is a multiple of 3?". Allow multiple answers to help students recognize all numbers have many multiples.

Once students are comfortable, invite them to play a game. Each student will write down a multiple of a given number. Their multiple must be less than 50. The person with the biggest multiple that no one else has picked will gain a point.

For example, if working with 2's, the biggest multiple less than 50 is 48. If more than one student writes down 48, move onto 46, again if more than one student writes down 46, move to 44 and continue until you reach a multiple only one student wrote.

Play a few rounds with different values. This warm up can be reused at any time to encourage students to think about multiples. It also elicits thinking by counting down rather than counting up to build multi-directional fluency.

Activity 1: Squares

Remind students about the previous activities such as filling out their multiplication table with everything except 7's and how 7 groups of 7 was the only empty space. Or, when doing turn arounds, every one had a turn around except when the groups and the number of items in each group were the same. It turns out, these are special numbers they will learn more about later. In this activity they will see one reason why they are special.

Provide students with an empty multiplication chart. They do not need to fill it in. Instead, they are going to draw squares, all starting in the top left corner. Remind students that a square is a shape with all sides having the same length (avoid using the phrases "all sides are the same" or "all sides are equal") and corners that form L's.

MathBait_Skip_Counting_Table.pdf

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Give each student 10 colors if possible. Together, outline squares on the table. Start with the smallest square, ask students what the smallest square we can make is. This is of course a square with side length 1. Starting at the top left, outline a 1×1 square on the table. Continue for 2 and 3. At this point, students should have the hang of things to complete the remaining squares.

Now have students work together or individually. Ask them to count how many little 1 by 1 squares are in each outline. They should write their total in the bottom right square. Do the first few together. As the initial square is 1 by 1, there is only a single square so we write 1. The next square (colored orange here) has 4 smaller squares inside it, we write a 4 in the bottom right corner. The third square holds 9, so we write a 9. Allow students to complete the remainder of the table. When they finish have them discuss with a partner what they notice.

Students should see that these squares are exactly the values on our multiplication table! Explain that each square is n groups of n items using examples. For instance, focus in on the 9 square. Notice that there are 3 rows each with 3 squares in them. Tell students we call these special numbers perfect squares as we can make squares with the same number of groups and items in the group.

The goal of this activity is to introduce students to a new way of looking at the table and introduce the terminology of perfect squares. They need not know all the squares or be able to list them. To reinforce the idea, students may play fingers to show that 2 fingers counting by 2's make 4 and 3 fingers counting by 3's make 9, and so on. It is not necessary to go beyond 2, 3, and 5.

Activity 2: Build It!

The purpose of this activity is to introduce students to the word prime. We have multiple activities to build a deep understanding of prime numbers both later in the MathBait™ Multiplication series and within The Kryptografima. For now, we are only exposing students to the idea and not worried about mastery of the concept.

Provide students with 5-6 sheets of graph paper and colored pencils. Explain their goal will be to build towers of a given height. Since any height can be made with one-blocks, we won't have one-blocks. Our first block size will be a two-block. Have students label the top of one sheet of their graph paper "My Blocks". On the page, select a color for their two-blocks, draw it out, and label it.

On another piece of graph paper have students draw out towers using their two blocks. Note, the width doesn't matter. A common LEGO is 2×2 but making all blocks have length 1 will save space. Ask students to label their towers by their height; what do they notice? Highlight that with blocks that are 2 units tall, we can make towers of size 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, ..., exactly our multiples of 2 or the numbers we say when skip counting by 2's.

Ask students for tower heights they were not able to build with 2 blocks (3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, ...). We should notice many sizes are multiples of 3, so let's make a 3 block. Allow students to select a design for their 3 block and add it to their My Blocks page. Then, draw out the first few tower sizes they can make using only 3 blocks.

Emphasize to students that in building our towers, we cannot combine block sizes. We are looking to build only using one size of block.

Ask students what they notice. Some key ideas are the towers we can build with 3 blocks are the multiples of 3 and some blocks can be built with 2 blocks or 3 blocks, such as 6 and 12. Connect back to previous activities when we learned that we can count by 6's by skip-skip counting by 3's or skip-skip-skip counting by 2's.

Now ask students what is the next size block we need. Students may suggest 4 (as logically we have 2, 3, 4). Explain we don't need a 4 block because we can make it using 2's! We already have a tower of size 4. Students should settle on 5 and design their 5 block on their My Blocks sheet and draw a few towers of size 5.

If time permits continue up to 10. Students will find they only need a 2, 3, 5, and 7 block as the other sizes have already been completed.

Explain that we call numbers like 2, 3, 5, and 7 prime because they are needed to build towers, or other numbers. These numbers are super powerful and we will continue to learn more about them later. For now, we just want to be introduced to what prime means.

Conclude by asking students to each give a number larger than 10 that they think is prime. Have a short discussion about their choices and how we might be able to test if a number is prime. Here are some strategies:

• If we know a number is a multiple, or a number we say when skip counting, it can't be prime because it can be built with smaller blocks.

• If a number is on our multiplication table (other than the first row and columns, as everything can be built with ones), it can't be prime.

Activity 3: Rainbow Multiples

This is a great game with many levels, methods of play, and difficulty. It is a class favorite that students ask for so make sure to bookmark this page (Note the entire series will also be available at www.MathBait.com/multiplication once all parts are released). You will be able to use this game as a quick warm up or spiral review and return to it when students are ready to tackle more challenging topics like division and remainders.

For now start with Level 1 and as students build familiarity graduate to Level 2.

Step 1: Create Teams (or individual groups)

There are many ways to play. Students may play individually or in small groups of 2, 3, or 4. We often play as a warm up as students against teacher, or split the class up into 4 groups as teams.

Step 2: Decide on the Rules

One thing we love about Rainbow Multiples is there are nearly endless ways to play! Depending on time, decide on the rules you will use. Some common games are,

• Connect Four (First player or team to earn 4 in a row wins. You may decide if diagonals are or are not allowed.)

• Sequence (First player or team to earn 5 in a row wins.)

• Bridge (Players or teams attempt to make a "bridge" across the board from top to bottom. This can be a good method of play for younger or struggling students as they tend to stick to the top of the board or smaller multiples, Bridge requires them to work on the larger values as well.)

• Blackout (The longest and most difficult. It can be very hard to fully Blackout the board.)

• Coloring (In this method players are not looking to "win" but to cooperate to make a fun picture. Each player switches colors, so selecting 4 players even if working individually or in smaller groups is ideal.)

Step 3: Play!

Select SKIP to jump into the game. Use the drop-downs to select the number of players or teams and the level (begin with Level 1).

Player (or team) 1 selects "Roll" to roll the dice. The game will show the roll and give instructions based on the value. A roll of 1 allows players to select any odd number while a roll of 2 allows players to select any even number. If students are not yet familiar with even and odd, teachers may assist and explain even numbers are the multiples of 2 or numbers we say when counting by 2's and odds are all the rest. Rolls from 3-10 allow players to select any multiple of the number. For instance, if rolling a 5 students should lean on the previous exercises (counting by 5's, Hide and Seek, etc.) to think about what numbers are multiples of 5. Rolling an 11 requires students to select any prime number and rolling a 12 requires players select a perfect square. It may be beneficial to provide students with their previous work including their square table and My Blocks sheet while playing.

If there are no available spaces (for instance all perfect squares have already been claimed) or a student cannot identify a value, they can select "I can't find one!" and play passes to the next player.

Continue to play until a player or team wins!

©MathBait created with GeoGebra

Benefits

In this lesson, students learned key terminology like multiple, square, and prime. It is not expected students master this right away. Instead, we are continuing to build on their previous knowledge to discover new ways to look at the multiplication table and the numbers we have been counting.

In Rainbow Multiples, students are increasing their ability to recognize multiples. While they may not instantly know 5×6=30, they are beginning to identify 30 as a multiple of 5 (and maybe even 6), 3, and 10. They can also determine the multiples through skip counting. This is an indirect path to multiplication that is building connections vital for understanding. In MathBait™ Multiplication Part 3, we will begin to multiply! Playing these games, and playing often will make the transition easy and fun.

Conclusion

At this time, we encourage students to stay at this level for a few weeks. Use the games as warm up activities or as a fun change of pace. Amp up Rainbow Multiples to Level 2 to further push their skills. Remember, students are now processing multiple pieces of information at once (both the number of items in a group and how many groups) and it will take some exercise to build their brain muscles. Still avoid encouraging memorization, however with more practice these relationships will become easier to recall instantly. The key difference is this recall is built on a strong foundation of understanding and previous knowledge. This will not only help the memories to last, but help students to maintain multiple strategies and relationships (such as 6 is both a multiple of 2 and 3 or we can count by 4's by skip-skip counting 2's).

Our next step will be to formally introduce multiplication. Due to the series of activities students have completed, this will not seem like a jump but rather a confidence booster as students will feel like they already know all about it!

If working with very young students, this is a good time to begin interweaving other topics while coming back to these activities for review. This is a great time to help students build a strong understanding of place value and continue to grow their addition skills if needed.

Stay tuned for the continuation of MathBait™ Multiplication. We hope your students enjoy these games and activities as much as our students do!

For even more fun with numbers pick up your copy of Marco the Great!

NOTE: The re-posting of materials (in part or whole) from this site is a copyright violation! We encourage you to use these activities with your students. You can not take any part of these activities and post them as your own or crediting MathBait™ without written permission. This includes making derivatives for Teacher Pay Teacher or other websites. The material here is not considered "fair use". Thank you for respecting the author's rights.