Multiplication Division Connection (Freebie) and a Giveaway going on!

First off let me tell you about an awesome giveaway going on over at my bloggy friend Holly's blog

You could win some awesome prizes including Holly's whole store! Scentos Holiday markers!! and 3 custom activities from little ol me! Yep, you pick the concept (addition/subtraction, multiplication, any reading skill, writing, you name it) and the theme (fall, winter, Christmas, apples, stick kids, what ever you like) and I'll create you three activities!! So click on the picture above to head on over there and enter to win!! 

Now let me tell you about my math woes! My students just weren't picking up on division and I was struggling to break it down for them! We worked on the steps to dividing and made flash cards that they could use to help them remember each step. We worked through problem after problem together. I checked for understanding over and over. I asked them to do a problem on their own and not one of them even knew where to start. The curriculum does not stop for us, we're suppose to be headed into fractions and were struggling to get division!! I was feeling quite overwhelmed with trying to figure out what to do next.

My special education supervisor meet with me to discuss my first observation and I told her about my delima "they just aren't making the multiplication/division connection" I said. Somewhere in the conversation I mentioned my blog and she wanted to see it. I pulled it up so she could check it out and showed her the BOO multiplication game I had created. She says "can't you make a game like this were they match the multiplication and division facts" - DUHHH!!! Immediately the light bulbs were going off and I knew exactly what I needed to do! (Don't you love when that happens)

So we went all the way back to basic division 6/2=3 and I explained that division is reverse multiplication, you just take the numbers your given and create a multiplication problem so we wrote 2 x ____ = 6 under the division problem. My students were able to easily solve this and as soon as I said, that's also the answer to our division problem the light bulbs in their heads were going off as well!! We did a couple more together and I was amazed how it had just clicked for them!!

For the next couple of days we kept it simple with only 2 digit numbers that they could quickly solve multiplication facts for. I would give them a worksheet with division problem, they would write the corresponding multiplication fact under the problem and solve it, in turn solving their division problem. Then I started throwing in three and four digit numbers to be divided by a single digit number. As soon as they saw the bigger numbers I heard "we can't do this" and "oh my goodness this is so hard" everywhere.

I quickly showed them that now we just create more than one multiplication problem, for example 1525/5 is equal to 5x_____=15 and 5x____=25. Keeping the numbers evenly divisible so we could create simple to solve multiplication problems was the key! They again caught on quick and today finished 25 problems in under 5 minutes when just last week they were in tears over division!! The confidence they've built is what is now driving their success!

So here's the game I created for us to play that got it all started.....

The kids loved it and kept asking to play again and again! I loved the confidence they now felt about division!!

Next week the plan is to introduce numbers that don't multiply evenly and looking for the closest possible match such as 72/2 = 36. You can't use 2x_____=7 so we'll have to find the closest match (2x3=6) and then subtract and find the 1 left over, bring down the 2 and create 12 and then find 2x_____=12. I think it will go much more smoothly then it did in the past!

I hope this freebie is helpful to someone else, it sure made a difference for my kiddos! This is truly what teaching is about for me! Finding a way to teach a concept kids really don't get at all and helping them build a confidence that they can and will learn rather than just saying "we don't get this" and moving on to the next thing! There is no better feeling then seeing that smile on their faces today as they did division!!