Multiplication Lesson Plans and Teaching Strategies

Interactive Multiplication Lesson Plans

Finding Lesson Plans and Designing Your Own

When following a curriculum, it can sometimes be difficult to find relevant lesson plans or come up with ideas for your own. It's likely that the teacher's edition of your math textbook contains lesson plans, but these may include memorization and worksheets. The Internet can be a solid resource to find numerous multiplication lesson plans that you can use or alter according to your own goals. There are also many easy-to-use templates that you can use to design your own lesson plans.

When designing lesson plans, it's often useful to follow a similar template and process every time. You'll first need to set the objective of the lesson. Next, you'll introduce the lesson to the class. After going over the new information once with your students, you can then do a fun class activity that will help your students practice and interact with the new material. After the activity, check your students' understanding by asking them to explain the new information back to you.

Teaching with Objects

Using objects, like food, in the classroom is often an effective way to motivate students. Give your students a handful of chocolate chips or some other small candy. If you don't want to use candy, you could use raisins. Ask the class to use the candies to set up an array showing a simple multiplication problem. An array is a visual representation of multiplication.

For example, if you want your students to visually represent the problem 3 x 4, the array would have three columns and four rows. Then, kids can count the candies to find the product (12).

Play a Game

To play this game, you will need empty egg cartons and marbles. To begin, divide students into pairs and give each pair of students an egg carton and a handful of marbles. Ask one partner to put a random number of marbles into each hole on one side of the egg carton. The other partner must multiply the number of marbles in each hold by a number specified by you. He or she will then place the correct number of marbles in the opposite hole.

For example, tell your students that they are multiplying by two. If student A put three marbles one hole, then student B needs to put six marbles in the opposite hole. After filling up all the holes, students can pour out the marbles and switch roles.