Teaching Times tables

It was just a great week of teaching Maths!

The ethos of Learn Create Share is very much a part of all my lessons. This week when I was teaching multiplication tables a student asked me “Why do we need to learn them?” I demonstrated various examples from everyday life about how knowing our tables can help us solve problems faster. We solved problems  using blocks, counters and other equipment. As we went through the lessons during the week, most students had learnt their times tables up to 5. I was feeling good!

Suddenly I heard some students pose multiplication problems to each other! They went “There are four friends and they have four chocolates each. How many chocolates did they have altogether?” I was just thrilled to hear this. Then they decided to make a word problem game out for it. They wrote their problems on a square piece of cardboard and had an illustrated description of their problem at the back of the card. When they had finished they came to me and said “ This is our Create and Share bit for learning times tables.”

My heart melted. I felt truly satisfied to see these students understand the whole concept of timetables which is usually a very abstract idea to start with. I praised them heaps for their effort. Suddenly the idea got viral and everyone wanted to make little booklets of multiplication problems. At the end of the week each student took a booklet home to share with their family.