Demystify multiplication by showing your pupils what’s going on visually this visual times tables lesson plan…
This lesson is based on Dr. Mahesh Sharma’s ‘six stages of learning’ in maths:
- intuitive
- concrete
- pictorial
- abstract
- application
- communication
What we’re going to focus on in this lesson is giving learners confidence in the key times tables of 1x, 2x, 5x and 10x.
Being able to manage and recall these key tables confidently means that children can use them to derive other, more advanced table facts later on.
They can try deriving 6x table, for example, by adding the 1x table to the 5x table. But to do that, it’s necessary to make the underlying multiplication patterns as visual as possible.
Visual times tables learning objectives
- How patterns can be used to help learn the key times tables
- How these tables relate to each other
- The commutative property of multiplication
- Representing multiplication as an array and repeated addition
You will need
Before you begin, gather together the following resources:
- Set of cards you can use to represent the numbers 1 to 10
- Set of Cuisenaire rods
- Blank multiplication grid
Judy Hornigold is an independent educational consultant specialising in helping children with dyscalculia, and delivers training for the British Dyslexia Association and Edge Hill University. Download our times tables worksheets bumper pack and browse more times tables activities.
