Multiplication Strategies

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

• Tell students that there are some important vocabulary words they must understand so that they can explain their thinking clearly throughout today's lesson. These words will be used to help them understand concepts, but they will also be used to support their oral language.
• Give each student a copy of the Glossary, and use the Vocabulary Cards to guide students down the list of words. Read each word and have students repeat it aloud. Then, choral read each definition. Explain each of the images and how it connects to the words and definitions.
• Point out that there are several strategies that can be used to solve multiplication problems, but that today's lesson will only focus on equal groups and repeated addition.
• Share a word problem involving multiplication and share how you can come up with the multiplication expression to solve the problem. (e.g., Each table in the classroom has 5 students. If there are 4 tables, how many students are in the classroom?)
• Model using equal groups to solve the problem of 4 x 5 + ?. Explain that this problem reads "4 groups of 5". Draw 4 circles and put 5 dots inside each circle. Tell them that this strategy also provides a good visual to use when solving multiplication problems. Think aloud as you skip count to find the total number of students in the classroom (20).
• Tell students that you are going to solve the problem using repeated addition. Write 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 on the board, and point out that each 5 represents one group of 5. Explain that this is less of a visual representation with a drawing than the other strategy, but it is related because it still represents the 5 students at each table. Model adding up the numbers to find the total of 20 students.

Guided Practice

• Create A-B partnerships, and tell the class that they will talk to their partner about their plan for solving a multiplication problem. Instruct Partner A to solve it by using equal groups, while Partner B solves it using repeated addition.
• Write a multiplication problem on the board, such as 6 x 8 = ? , and provide real-life context to make the problem meaningful. (e.g., There are 8 crackers in each package. There are 6 packages in a box. If I buy the box, how many crackers will I have?)
• Give partnerships time to solve the problems with their designated strategies using their whiteboards. Then, have them share their work with each other. Challenge them to compare and contrast the strategies they used by looking for similarities and differences.
• Provide oral language support with sentence stems/frames:
  • A similarity/difference between the two strategies is ____.
  • I noticed that ____ is similar/different because ____.
  • One thing that is similar/different is ____.
• Ask students to discuss the following key points in their partnerships:
  • What worked well in the strategy you used? (____ worked will in this strategy because ____.)
  • What would make your strategy easier to use? (____ would make the strategy easier to use because ____. and/or I'm not sure what would make the strategy easier to use because ____.)
• Give students a new multiplication problem, such as 5 x 7 = ?, and have them switch strategies. Instruct them to follow the same process for discussion.

Group work time

• Facilitate a discussion, asking students to focus on specific relationships between the two multiplication strategies. Ask questions and provide sentence stems/frames to support the conversation:
  • Why does this approach include multiplication, and this one does not? (This approach includes multiplication while this one does not because ____.)
  • Who can restate ____'s reasoning in a different way? (Their reasoning was that ____.)
  • Who solved the problem the same way, but would explain it differently? (I also solved it by ____, and I would also say ____.)
  • How could this problem be solved in a way that is different from these two strategies? (Another way to solve it is ____.)
  • Do you agree or disagree? Why? (I agree/disagree because ____.)
  • How are these two strategies connected? (They are connected ____.)