Multiplication Stories

Regina Payne, RRISD Instructional Coach

EQUAL GROUPS PROBLEM SOLVING

For the next 12 slides, I wrote some problems so that I could conceptually build the idea of representations for multiplication. They range from acting out the problems with real objects to making decisions on what manipulatives or pictorial representations to use to represent the problems.

Acting Out Multiplication Story Problems Using Real Objects

Mary and Marcus line up some chairs. They make 3 rows of 4 chairs. How many chairs do they line up?

Act this problem out…Dennis, Francis, Lakeisha, Bernadette,

and Jamie put three chairs at five tables. How many chairs did they use?

Use real pencils for this…Manuel gives five children two pencils

each. How many pencils did Manuel give out?

Use real books for this one…Shantea makes four stacks of books. She

puts three books in each stack. How many books does she use?

What could we use to represent these objects?

Charles puts five boxes of crayons on the table. Each box has eight crayons inside. How many crayons are now on the table?

What could we use to represent these objects?

Lee puts three erasers on each table. There are six tables. How many erasers did he use?

Acting Out Multiplication Stories Using Counters

There are four houses on Leticia’s street. Each house has two cars. How many cars is that in all?

Use your counters to model this problem. What does one counter represent in this problem?

How could you record this model in your journals?

Work with a partner to model these problems.Tim had three dogs. He gave each dog two

bones. How many bones did he give to all the dogs?

Five girls went to the library. They each checked out three books. How many books did they check out altogether?

There are five children in Dale’s family. Each child gets to carve two pumpkins for Halloween. How many jack-o’-lanterns will they have?

Robin’s mother went shopping for school clothes for her three children. She bought three new shirts for each child. How many shirts did she buy?

More Problem Solving with ModelsThese next ideas include models but are a

little more abstract. The problems are a little more complicated, but the work with models helps in those cases to become more proficient with problem solving.

Towers or Stacks (lesson 2.4)Engage: With a partner, build the

following kinds of groups-

Build three towers of five

Build two towers of four

Build four stacks of six

Problem Solving 1

Explore: Jon’s company is building a new hospital. The hospital is designed in sections of towers. There are five towers that are each seven stories tall. There is also a smaller tower to build which has only 2 floors. How many floors is Jon’s company responsible to build altogether?

Share and Compare

Explain: Share your strategy with your partner or table group. Some will be asked to share with the classroom.

Problem Solving 2Maria made a design with triangles and

trapezoids. She made stacks of 4 triangles with 2 trapezoids on top. If her design included 8 stacks of figures, how many triangles and how many trapezoids did Maria use? How many figures altogether did she use?

Challenge: What if Maria used 20 triangles, how many trapezoids would she have used?

Share and Compare

Explain: Share your strategy with your partner or table group. Some will be asked to share with the classroom.

Building Related Models

Engage Vocabulary UsageUsing color tiles, build a row that has 4

tiles (a row goes across horizontally) Make three rows of four (how many)Make two rows of three (how many)Make two piles of five (how many)Make three groups of two (how many)What is represented in this model?

Problem Solving 3

Marcus used square tiles to make a model of his garden. He had six rows of plants with nine plants in each row. How many plants did he have room for in his garden?

Share and Compare

Explain: Share your strategy with your partner or table group. Some will be asked to share with the classroom.

Problem Solving 4 and more

Lisa sorted her stuffed animals into piles of same animals. She was surprised to find out that she had six kinds of animals. What was more surprising to her was that she had the same number of animals of each kind. If she had 30 total stuffed animals, how many of each kind did she have. (use your model to help you think through this problem).

Lisa sorted her stuffed animals into piles of same animals. She was surprised to find out that she had six kinds of animals. What was more surprising to her was that she had the same number of animals of each kind. If she had 30 total stuffed animals, how many of each kind did she have. (use your model to help you think through this problem).

Share and Compare

Explain: Share your strategy with your partner or table group. Some will be asked to share with the classroom.

Your turn…In your journals, write three problem

situations in which you could use a multiplication model to solve your problem. Make sure your problems make sense.

On another page, solve your problems using a model.

Be careful to consider how you record your responses:

Label all parts of your model.Include a number sentence and a word

sentence to describe your solution.