Grade: Elementary
Subject: Mathematics

#2503. Multiplication & Rounding Ideas

Mathematics, level: Elementary
Posted Sat Mar 2 13:39:28 PST 2002 by Sonia (leabuster@aol.com).
Student Teacher Spring 2002, South Texas
Concepts Taught: Multiplication & Rounding

3/02/02
These strategies were introduced and used by my Mentor Teacher for 2nd graders in Spring 2002. I also attended a workshop where they showed us how to use these...I would've NEVER thought of using these strategies. The Math Multiplication and rounding numbers were introduced as follows...

The way my Mentor teacher introduced it was by writing on the board (during Math journal every morning) along with several other problems...before actually writing out problems like 4
x5

Make 3 rows with 5 dots in each
' ' ' ' ' of course you draw a line under
' ' ' ' ' the dots...it didn't come out
' ' ' ' ' when I pasted this...
If you count all the dots it will give you the answer to the multiplication problem:
3 x 5 = 15 It doesn't even matter if you had made 5 rows with 3 dots in each...it still gives you the same answer.
The kids really caught on quick, and it's worked well.
Maybe this will help as well.

With ROUNDING.... she would have the students circle the number in the tens place and underline the number in the ones place 76 then she would tell them the rules for rounding...."if the number in the ones place is less than 4....the number in the tens place stays the same"
"if the number in the ones place is 5 or more then the number in the tens place goes up"
Some kids know that rule now and others need to be reminded. We also use the number line or the roller coaster.

Best Wishes!!

--Sonia