The past two weeks in math, we have been learning about writing multiplication number sentences. The students worked with manipulatives to put the cubes into groups in order to get a total number (which was given). We taught students about what happens when there are remainders. The students did not have to group the cubes into equal groups; rather, they had to group them into groups of the same amount, whether or not they had a remainder. We were working on a calendar multiplication chart where the students and I filled out the calendar according to the days in October. After modeling and working on problems together, I allowed the students to fill out box 21 with a partner.
While walking around the classroom to hear student strategies and student thinking, I came across with more than one group that wrote their multiplication problem 11+10=21. Although I told the students that this was true, I asked the students to think about this same sentence using multiplication. I asked, "How many groups of 11 do you have?" I was looking for the students to write multiplication sentences. The next steps of subsequent lesson plans may be to write division sentences and to further discuss division.
I think that what you noticed is very significant, but where I think you can go further in this post is to think about what that might mean for student understanding or what future experiences might help students think about the similarities / differences between addition and multiplication. Can you think of an example where students can use multiplication but not addition? How might you present them with this task?
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