Maths in 2B this week

Hi All
For a long time, maths has definitely been my favourite subject to program and teach. There is something about the "break-down" of skills that I really love. The only difficulty I find when teaching maths is that I try to look at the skills at hand from a few different angles. I find it hard when I come across a student that has outside tutoring and is great at performing the skills, yet lacks the understanding of the process. That is a skill in itself yes? Anyway I digress....

This week we are looking at multiplication. I have 4 groups and we do "Number" groups for 4 days, which means each group goes to one activity per day.

Here is my outline for the week.

Let me tell you a little about the activities.

2, 5 and 10 time table bingo is from my TPT collection. It has the kids practicing a rapid recall of multiplication facts. They are getting quite good at this.

Fishing Fun was adapted from lovely Shanyn at Coffee, Kids and Compulsive lists and given a slight twist. Instead of printing everything out (coz I am lazy), I used already printed and laminated times table fact cards for 2, 3, 5 and 10. I gave the kids a bunch of plastic bowls and a container of counters. They had to pick a card, get the right amount of bowls and then give each bowl the right amount of counters. They then had to come up with an answer. I wish I had taken pics (maybe another day) but it was great for those kids who still need that 'concrete' learning. BTW, click the Fishing Fun link and go to Shanyn's store to download it for FREE!

Multiplication Match is another great freebie set of games from the awesome Kylie at DownUnderTeacher, from her Multiplication Madness pack (don't you love FREE!!!). The kids have to match the question with the answer and then I am getting them to record in their books. Practice makes perfect hey?

The IWB games, which I also run on the classroom computers are

http://www.multiplication.com/games/play/flying-high

This game focuses on matching the answer to whatever question pops up (and you are flying a plane, so coolness helps learning right?)

http://www.abcya.com/super_connect_the_dots_kids_game.htm

This one is a huge connect the dots! You can choose to count by any multiple you like ( we stuck to 2, 3, 5 and 10) and as you join the dots it makes a big picture. The levels get harder and longer.

My worksheets vary for each group. My low group (circles) were doing a more visual activity, where my stars (high group) are doing word problems. I am also trying to extend them by doing multiplication with 'trading' - something they don't need to know until Year 3 and 4.

I hope there is something in here that can help you next time you look at multiplication :) And don't forget to visit Shanyn and Kylie, download their freebies and leave some comments!!!!