One of the skills we cover in second grade (which I know is often a third grade skill) is multiplying by multiples of 10. This can off scare kids as you are using larger numbers, but I knew my kids could handle it. To make it a little less scary, I introduced it using a story problem. I put the problem below up on the board and read over it with the kids.
Then, I told the kids to solve it on their white boards at their seats. I didn’t give any prompting or suggestions, I wanted to see what they would come up with on their own. Boy was I pleasantly surprised! They had amazing strategies! As you’ll see below they came up with multiple different ways to come to the answer. They all understood it was equal groups and they used strategies we had talked about with multiplication – drawing out equal groups, skip counting, repeated addition, breaking apart numbers, etc. I was so proud of them. After giving them time to solve I had students bring their white board up to explain their strategies to the class.
This honestly was the best way I have ever introduced it. Instead of me telling them how to figure it out or only showing them the trick (8 x 3 = 24 so 8 x 30 = 240), they really took them time to try to figure it out for themselves. And it helped because on future problems they knew multiple strategies they could use to solve it.
See their awesome strategies below…
