Physical Multiplying and Dividing by 10, 100 & 1000

Here, we go. Another, "We saw a Tweet and post..."

Dividing and multiplying by 10, 100, and 1000 ➗✖️ #whatItaughttoday #activemaths #primaryrocks #school pic.twitter.com/osM62eEaD1

— Miss Jeeves (@MissJeeves) May 10, 2017

So, we saw the above Tweet and then went and tried it out. This video has always aided our teaching of this mathematical concept, but saw instantly how this could add to it. 

We took some chalk and wrote out some place value headings and asked the children to stand behind them. Then called out X and ÷ questions and watched them move. Sometimes they were correct, sometimes wrong and sometimes disagreed. They enjoyed it, did some learning and we had a few discussions. See below for a video of what we got up to.

The Grid Challenge

Saw a Tweet earlier this week:

Absolutely unbelievable scenes as Sarah in Year 6 takes this down in 8 and a half minutes pic.twitter.com/wk2Z8cCXl8

— Ashley Booth (@MrBoothY6) February 13, 2017

Wow. Didn't the child do well. And, we really liked the look of the task, so we set about making some of our own. Our class have really enjoyed trying to solve them since. We made an Excel document for creating them and extended it over the four operations. 

At the time of writing, we've used multiplication and addition grids with our class. Not sure how useful the subtraction and division versions will be, but they're there if needed.

Find the resources here. Hope it's useful.

Strictly Come Arithmetic

While watching Strictly Come Dancing (yes TV to the rescue again), I noticed a contestant was given a 7 by each of the judges. My brain immediately set to work and inside my head, I muttered to myself, "Oh, 28". Genius, I know. So, Strictly Come Dancing can be used for some four times table work. Maybe screenshot the scores, maybe make your own, maybe watch a dance that's given four of the same score (to engage the class) and ask the class to quickly work out the total. Of course, we can not do any of those here due to copyright (Have emailed the BBC to ask for permission though - they always say no though).

There's more here than just the four times table of course, it's mental addition. Score of 6, 6, 7, 6 is 3 X 6 + 7. So now all scores given are useful. Again, take screenshots, make your own, watch it back in iPlayer. I like the idea of seeing part of the dance for a bit of context. How quickly, and most importantly what methods are used, to get the total score given?

More Times Table Ideas

On Monday 16th March 2015, our school held an internal TeachMeet as our staff meeting. Here's one of the presentations we made as part of that...

Update 26th March 2015:

@PrimaryIdeas practise multiplication tables with http://t.co/5U1J3LXROi use with the whole class
— Grange Education (@GrangeEducation) March 24, 2015

Kung Fu Maths

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Kung Fu Maths is a practical maths activity for reinforcing mathematical vocabulary. It can be carried out in a classroom or outside, standing up or sitting down. 

Firstly, it involves four actions:

• Arms crossed, one horizontal and the other vertical represents addition.
• One arm placed horizontally represents subtraction.
• Arms crossed diagonally are for multiplication.
• Finally, one arm placed horizontally and then the other arm ‘punching’ once above and once below shows division.

The way I have used this is to reinforce mathematical vocabulary. I say a question to the class, for example, “What is the product of 2 and 3?” The class then respond by showing the correct sign, in this case arms crossed diagonally and call back the answer (6).

It’s a nice lesson start or end to a lesson, or even in the middle!

Multiplying and Dividing by 10, 100 & 1000

After searching for ways to help children understand what is happening when multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000, this is the best method I've come across. Moving children away from the notion of 'adding a 0' or 'taking off a 0' is essential for them to be able to multiply and divide by multiples of 10 when using decimal numbers. This video shows a simple way to demonstrate this: