3rd Grade's A Charm: Multiplication

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Multiplication - Scary or Sweet?

Scary or sweet? Tricks or treats? How do your kids see multiplication?

Each and every year we work...and work...and work...on multiplication! It is a big focus for our kids after Christmas, but I'm starting early with our review this year! Our third graders should come to us knowing how to multiply by 0's, 1's, 2's, 5's, and 10's, but you know how that goes! Thanks to Fern Smith, of Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas, my kids had a great time reviewing their 1's, 2's, and 5's this week with some Halloween fun!

Jessica Stanford is hosting another wonderful product swap, and I was paired up with Fern!

Looking through her TPT store, all of the great products made it so hard for me to make a choice, but I absolutely loved her Thirteen Halloween Multiplication Center Games!

Here's Fern's description of her product:

"This 110 Paged Halloween Themed Center Game has one game for every times tables ~ Zero to Twelve!!

* 13 Different Halloween themes in full color with student directions included.

* 110 PAGES of printable center games including a variety of different ways to play the game.

* Distinct Cover Sheet to glue on folders, or place in a Ziplock Baggie.

* Each theme has two pages of Matching Problems & Answers in Color to be cut apart as playing cards. Or use one page as a game board and one page cut apart as the matching playing cards.

* Everything also comes in Black and White if you want to save on color printer ink!

** Extra Bonus! A Cover Sheet for your students to organize their own folder for individualize center games.This center game is designed to be printed, cut apart for your classroom and laminated if desired. It is cute, colorful and is completely designed to be an independently led student activity. EXCELLENT for when the teacher is working with small reading or math groups. It also contains the ENTIRE file in a black and white version so that you can copy it and send it home as weekly homework. Great for the students to cut out and practice fine motor skills as well as reinforcing their multiplication times tables! Placed together or apart, the concepts in this center game helps a child learn to have quicker mental math!"

Not only do you get thirteen great multiplication games with cover (title) pages and student directions, but you get them in color and black and white and you get extra ideas for different ways to assemble and use the games! I didn't take pictures of my preparation (I forget so many things lately!), but it was super quick and easy. It took me maybe one 45 minute planning period to print, laminate, and cut out the color game pieces, title pages, and directions for three games! I started with the 1's, 2's, and 5's because, like I said, that should be review for my kiddos! I used large manilla folders to store the game pieces and directions with the game's cover/title page on the front. (forgot to snap a picture of that too unfortunately...) But on to the game!

Check out these cute game pieces that can get us all in the Halloween spirit!

I loved Fern's tip for making the games self-checking! I have TONS of small stickers/chart seals that I used to label matching cards. Thanks for the idea, Fern!

The kids had a great time reviewing these multiplication facts when there was a fun game to help them out! And with the self-checking cards, they all had the chance to be successful and make their own adjustments and corrections!

Fern has so many great products and tons of freebies in her store! Be sure to check them all out. She has great Halloween themed addition center games too if you're kids aren't quite ready for multiplication!