student work blog week 9

We have been working with identifying patterns in multiplication.  Many of the students are quickly able to identify that counting by twos entails skipping the odd numbers and landing on numbers that end in 2,4,6,8, or 0.  They can see that skip counting by fives produces multiples that end in either 5 or 0.  When looking for patterns in nines, they notice that each time the tens places increases by one and the ones place decreases by one. 

            For some students, these patterns are not so apparent.  For one student in particular, he struggled to understand the multiples of five.  He could not recognize that he was two repeatedly add five, and that the multiples would only end in five or zero.  One possibility of his misconception could be that he does not know his multiples of five.  Another possibility is that he may not recognize the difference between odd and even numbers, or the rule that an odd plus an odd will equal an even number, while an odd plus an even number will be odd. 

            One strategy I could use in helping to guide him to the correct answer would be to review multiples of five, showing him on a number line how to count up by fives.  I could also have him look for the pattern of the multiples of five by first writing them out and showing him how each multiple ends in zero, then five, and so on.  I should also ask him to explain the difference between an odd and even number.