Multiplication Week, Day #1

Since my fourth grade math class is struggling with multiplication facts, I decided to dedicate an entire week to just that. Each day we will practice saying and writing facts, as well as doing many fun activities. Today was our first day. To start with we worked on some tricks and reminders. Here are a few: "5,6,7,8.....56 is 7x8!" and "5x5 is 25, I just saw a big bee hive; 6x6 is 36, let's go stir the cookie mix; 7x7 is 49, don't sit on a porcupine" (the kids got to create the rhymes for those doubles facts). We also use "nines hands", a cool strategy for figuring out the 9 times table with your fingers. (Yes, it's ok to use fingers!) After going over the tricks and reminders students wrote out their own flashcards to add to the ones we made last week. On one side they put the fact and its twin (4x5 and 5x4) and on the other side they wrote the answer. Finally, I called out multiplication facts and students wrote the answers with dry-erase markers on a large, round, clear plastic table protector. We did this sitting in the middle of the church foyer, simply for a change of scenery (something simple as that can make an activity a hundred times more fun!)