Classroom Connections

It has been a few weeks since I updated our blog. This is a sign of how busy we are in Grade 5M.

During the month of November in Math, we are studying multiplication and division. This unit takes some time as many students struggle with these concepts. One of the most common concerns with upper grades is that students do not know their basic facts. Most math after grade requires automaticity and fluency in basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Over this long weekend, your child will be bringing home a blue teaching booklet and a white practice booklet that requires your child to read a question and example from the blue book, then go to the same question # in the white practice book. Please help your child work through this over the weekend. To this point, we have reviewed up to multiplication of double digit by single digit.

Students have been evaluated on this and will be reported on report cards. However, this is a grade 4 concept, but difficult for many. I am confident that by interview time, we can have conversations how successful your child is at double digit by double digit multiplication, shown in a few different ways.

Outcome: N5.2

Analyze models of, develop strategies for, and carry out multiplication of whole numbers. [C, CN,ME, PS, R, V]

Describe mental mathematics strategies used to determine multiplication facts to 81 (e.g., skip counting from a known fact, doubling, halving, 9s patterns, repeated doubling, or repeated halving).
Explain concretely, pictorially, or orally why multiplying by zero produces a product of zero.
Recall multiplication facts to 81 including within problem solving and calculations of larger products.
Generalize and apply strategies for multiplying two whole numbers when one factor is a multiple of 10, 100, or 1000.
Generalize and apply halving and doubling strategies to determine a product involving at least one two-digit factor.
Apply and explain the use of the distributive property to determine a product involving multiplying factors that are close to multiples of 10.
Model multiplying two 2-digit factors using an array, base ten blocks, or an area model, record the process symbolically, and describe the connections between the models and the symbolic recording.
Pose a problem which requires the multiplication of 2-digit numbers and explain the strategies used to multiply the numbers.
Illustrate, concretely, pictorially, and symbolically, the distributive property using expanded notation and partial products (e.g., 36 x 42 = (30 +6) x (40+2) = 30 x 40 + 6 x 40 +30 x 2 + 6 x 2).
Explain and justify strategies used when multiplying 2-digit numbers symbolically