Building Arrays and Using an Area Model in Multiplication

We continued our work with multiplication this week!  I have a fun game to show you at the end, so keep reading!

We started this week building array with squares, to introduce the area model of multiplication.

Students built arrays with  the squares and then cut them out of grid paper, labeling the rows and columns.

Last year I created a great product to use with my second graders, but since we’ve adopted the common core this year, it’s really more of a third grade product.  Here’s how I adapted to to second grade.

The above photos are my students doing the first activity.  Instead of writing multiplication expressions they wrote repeated addition equations.

We then created a chart, just like I did last year, but instead of writing the multiplication facts, we wrote how many rows and columns and the addition equations.

I created the chart to go up to 25, instead of 36, so that students could see 5 by 5 arrays.  Days one through three this week, we spent making the chart.  We didn’t complete all the numbers, but most of them got done.  I made sure that all the composite numbers had squares and rectangles.

On our last day, we played a multiplication game.  I first made sure students could draw an array accurately.  I only had three that were questionable, so I paired them with stronger students.  Each pair of students got a piece of grid paper, two dice, and two different colored pencils.  Students rolled the dice and drew an array based on the numbers they rolled.  They labeled their arrays with the rows and columns.  Students continued playing until they couldn’t fill their board.  If a student rolled and couldn’t play, they lost a turn.  Play stopped when it was apparent that they couldn’t fill their board anymore.

After playing students wrote the addition sentences that matched their arrays on a separate piece of paper.  Since everything was color coded, it was easy for students to see which arrays were theirs.

How do you help your students build arrays and see area models in multiplication?  We need to do a lot more work with multiplication stories.  My kiddos have such low language skills, that the words and situations in story problems just don’t make sense to them.  Hopefully building the visual model first will help!