Two Current Approaches to Multiplication

Our work with multi-digit multiplication has certainly made progress in recent weeks. Below are two common approaches that we have been using in class:

Multiplication Cluster

This strategy of decomposing one of the factors has reinforced the concept of multiplication in that one factor represents the size of groups while the other factor represents the number of groups.

Open Array Model 

This model has been fantastic as we have made sense of multiplication with larger factors because it has helped us not lose sight of the value of each factor and it has enabled us to decompose BOTH factors and keep track of finding all of the needed partial products.