Everybody go home!

I taught Multiplying Larger numbers today in the VOE school.  P4 - P7.  

First, I had a representative come up from each class and work the problem on the board.

You can see the guy in blue trying to figure out 8 x 6.

I immediately saw that the reason this is a weak area is not because they don’t understand the process of multiplying, but because they don’t know their multiplication tables.

The kids that first came up to work a problem all started to write and then stopped.  They were figuring in their heads.

I taught for an hour, confirming my theory.  Then I decided to do some multiplication practice. The game “All around the world” should work in a large group.  No.  Chaos.  Chaos. Total Chaos.  After 12 minutes of real effort, I shouted over the roar - “Everybody go home!”

Today, I teach multiplication with decimals.  Let’s see how it goes. . .  (I told Heather that someone else could teach them the Times Tables - I gotta teach Anna how to count to 10!)