This free math tutoring video shows you how to introduce the traditional multiplication algorithm (or formula), but in a conceptual way using Cuisenaire Rods as manipulatives. The multiplication algorithm is usually not understood, even by teachers. This video will make clear what it’s all about.
This method will work for everyone, but it works especially well for visual and kinesthetic learners as well as those with dyscalculia/dyslexia, global thinkers, right-brained learners, and others for whom the traditional school approach does not work well.
Before teaching the algorithm, make sure your students have had plenty of practice doing these types of problems with just the rods and figuring them out in their heads! It will be a greater benefit to their future to build number sense that way first and then introduce the formal short-cut method.
This free math tutoring video shows my 6 and 8-year-old daughters figuring out the squares of numbers 10 through 20. We use a variety of strategies. This activity is helpful in building thinking skills and further developing number sense. They are beginning to see numbers as a picture in their minds that they will carry with them forever.
Square numbers are used frequently in higher math. If they come into contact with them enough now while they are young, they will have no trouble applying this knowledge later on in middle and high school.
This free math tutoring video shows how to easily represent multiplication of numbers in the teens visually. Most children (and adults!) have no understanding of what they are actually doing when they perform the multiplication algorithm. After watching this video and trying it a few times on your own, you should begin to understand what it’s really all about and may even begin to multiply big numbers in your head!
Cuisenaire Rods are an effective tool in developing a conceptual understanding of mathematical topics in children and adults. Our minds remember pictures and color much better than symbols. This is the perfect way to introduce long multiplication.
