How to Incorporate Multiplication Lesson Plans into Your Classroom
If you are an upper elementary teacher you probably have some way to teach multiplication to your classes. Maybe you do multiplication drills daily. Maybe you break out the manipulatives. Maybe your multiplication lessons are done strictly in math centers. Maybe you do all these things or don’t fully have a flow yet but are trying to find ways to introduce multiplication lesson plans into your classroom.
Now if you have been teaching multiplication lessons for yours you may very well have a multiplication lesson plan that works for you. However, I have found that switching up your lesson plans can be very helpful when you have a new set of students that might be at different levels.
This summer I have been teaching a multiplication summer camp and have seen a lot of students that are at completely different levels and ages even. I have an 8-year-old student that didn’t know what 8+0 was but 6-year-olds seemed to memorize their multiplication tables overnight. Every student is different, and you need a lesson plan that can be used in many different ways to adapt to different situations.
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Why do you need a multiplication lesson plan?
The short answer to this question is that you cannot just fly by the seat of your pants with multiplication. Multiplication is one of the most basic foundations that students need to understand for all math going forward. When students don’t know multiplication they struggle with math for the rest of their schooling career. Also, multiplication is not just something that can be mastered in a couple of lessons or something that is simply a unit then you move on. Memorizing takes time and practice which is why you need something that you can incorporate into your classroom long-term. Your multiplication lesson plans should become a major part of your class on a daily basis.
Multiplication lesson plans for interactive presentations
This summer with my multiplication summer camp I decided to completely revamp and create some amazing multiplication lesson plans. The main way that I have used these lesson plans is through interactive presentations.
One thing to know about me is I am a tutor so I work with smaller groups of students mostly online so interactive presentations are the way to go for me specifically. I share my screen on zoom and I can walk students through the process of multiplication. I will introduce each of the strategies to them and then they will have chances to answer questions.
My multiplication lesson plans have been perfect for this because they have the perfect amount of lectures with interaction. I can show my students all different strategies and tricks and let them apply those.
Interactive presentations are also helpful for teaching multiplication strategies. In these presentations, I try to incorporate several strategies so all students can find one that they really click with. The ones that I cover are skip counting, patterns, arrays, grouping, and repeated addition. This also means that I can differentiate and find the strategies that work best for lower-level and higher-level students.
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Multiplication lesson plans for math centers
Another great place to incorporate multiplication lesson plans is math centers. I have my students pull up the multiplication lesson plans and activities on their iPads or chrome books. Then you can split them into groups based on their levels and they can work together to solve the activities.
With match centers, students may work on one activity for 20 to 30 minutes and then move on to another activity. This may allow the lesson plans to be used over a couple of days or a week for each set of numbers. Higher level students may fly through it, but they can also go back and practice it more so that the multiplication facts really get ingrained in their brains.
Bringing technology into multiplication lesson plans
There are so many new ways to incorporate technology in your multiplication lesson plans. In fact, if you aren’t using digital tools in your multiplication lesson plans you are really missing out on the wealth of opportunity and practice that your students can get through fun digital multiplication games.
Boom cards
One of the amazing digital tools that you should be incorporating into your multiplication lesson plans. This past year I went on kind of a boom card craze and made multiplication boom cards for several holidays plus ones that can be used all the time. Boom cards are the best for incorporating into your multiplication lesson plans because they are self-grading. You can see what questions students are missing and work on those more. Students also love them because they often are very cute, interactive, and give students feedback right away so they can tell if they are getting questions done or not.
My favorite boom cards that I made are my multiplication drills. My students love the school supplies clip art and it is so easy for them to practice their multiplication tables and review what we have learned in classes. Truthfully it is the easiest practice that I incorporate into my multiplication lesson plans.
Google Classroom
Google classroom is another great place to assign, grade, and incorporate multiplication lesson plans. My multiplication lesson plans are already on google drive so they are easily assignable in google classroom. Google Classroom also makes it easy for you to make copies for each of your students with just the click of a button watch the video below to see how to do that.
Daily multiplication lesson plan ideas
Truthfully your multiplication lesson plans should have a daily component of practice. When I was in the fourth grade my teacher did a boat race and she also made it easy on herself since so many students were on different numbers in the race we would do a test where she would just read out numbers and we had to multiply those by our target number and write them down. This method stuck with me and is one of the reasons that I think I memorized my multiplication tables so well. Another reason was that my mom carried around multiplication flashcards and it was common that when we were waiting at a restaurant that she would pull those out and we would play a few rounds or in the car on long car trips.
Anyways since this method from my fourth-grade teacher stuck with me so much. I decided to make a similar version for my subscribers if you would like to get your hands on it. Click on the image below to sign up to become one of my subscribers and to get this amazing item.
Differentiating multiplication lesson plans
Ultimately whatever lesson plan you have you are going to need to be able to differentiate it. You are going to have students that are at lower levels than others and then some that are heads and tails above the rest. This summer I taught a multiplication summer camp for ages 6-8 and sometimes the 6-year-olds were lower and other times they were heads and tails above some of the 8-year-olds. So, I had to find ways to make the same lesson work for everyone.
Manipulatives
Manipulatives are the first thing that you can use to differentiate multiplication lesson plans. I use base ten blocks with my lesson plans and have students count the blocks like they would numbers. You can also teach patterns with the base ten blocks by showing when the next number is going to make the tens place go up. In this way you would have students replace their one block with a ten or you can set out the pattern of one blocks and draw a line on the paper and when children are skip counting the patterns they can put base ten rods down to show the tens place switching.
100s Charts
Another way that you can differentiate multiplication lesson plans is to allow students to have 100 charts. I laminate them that way students can shade in the numbers that they are on or leap to the next numbers when they are counting. These are just helpful to have in front of students who are just starting to practice their multiplication before they memorize it.
Multiplication Charts
Another one of the last ways that you can differentiate your multiplication lesson plans is to allow kids to have a multiplication chart while they practice their lessons. This will allow them to look up answers that they don’t know before they memorize all their multiplication tables. It is also just helpful to have in your classroom so kids are always looking at it and thereby starting to memorize the numbers.
There are a lot of reasons to have multiplication lesson plans in your classroom and a lot of ways to make sure they work out for your students. I hope that if you don’t have a plan for your multiplication lesson plans that this lets you know where to start. If you do have a plan I hope this post helped you see some other amazing things that you can incorporate into your classroom.
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