Class Antics – Inside Elementary Education

An occasional series with sample pages from the Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!

This tip comes straight from my Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!  The section on teaching 2 digit multiplication is very helpful for teachers looking to scaffold learning.  I break long multiplication into 3 sections—multiplying multidigit numbers by 1, 2 or 3 digits.  Within each section, a dozen or more lessons teach the process step by step.

Please use these two FREE sample pages with your class to introduce 2 digit multiplication.  This introductory lesson lets your students learn the Hugs and Kisses method to keep their numbers lined up when they have to put in that place holding O.  (The place holding O is the hug.  You put an X, or kiss, over a number to kiss it goodbye when you are through with it.)

The workbook lets students practice Hugs and Kisses by beginning with multiplying times 11.  This isolates the Hugs and Kisses skill, allowing students to focus on the procedure, not the math.

I wish I’d learned multiplication this way when I was a kid!  I hope this and other lessons from the Best Multiplication Workbook EVER! help your students.

Once I developed this tip, my students quickly mastered how to read long numbers.

Take the example 165,247,873

I showed my students that within each comma, the numbers follow the standard hundreds-tens-ones protocol. The comma simply indicates whether you are dealing with millions, thousands or plain old units (the name some people give the hundreds-tens-ones group.)

Each three-digit group can be read as if it were just a hundred. Referring to our example number, you first say “One hundred sixty-five.” The comma signifies millions since you are in the third comma group from the right. Thus, you begin reading the number by saying “one hundred sixty-five MILLION.” (Capital letters added for emphasis—they’re very helpful for students.)

Then, you read the next three-digit group as if it were a hundred: “two hundred forty-seven” and then add the THOUSAND. (I point to the comma as I loudly say “THOUSAND.”

Last, read the last three-digit group as a regular number: “eight hundred seventy-three.”

Thus, your number is “one hundred sixty-five MILLION, two hundred forty-seven THOUSAND, eight hundred seventy-three.”

Once I taught my students this, they understood why each place is important. They had less trouble reading and writing numbers with a zero as a placeholder, such as 207,800. After all, you just read each three-digit group as a regular old hundred: “two hundred seven THOUSAND, eight hundred.”

Ironically, our math book teaches place value only to the ten thousands. I think that’s to save children from that horrifying extra place value that would take them to the hundred thousands. But when I taught to the hundred thousands and even hundred millions using this method, the confusion (for the most part) went away.

Muppets in the Classroom

This year, we give thanks for The Muppets!  At long last, a new Muppets movie will be released on November 23.  It promises zany antics, copious cameos, moments of genuine emotion, and probably more than one karate chop from Miss Piggy.  I don’t know about you, but I’m also looking forward to the wit and wisdom of Statler and Waldorf as they resume their posts as official hecklers.

In honor of the movie, I offer several applications of Muppets to the classroom.  Some suggestions are actually good ideas.  Others have no basis in sound educational theory…but I’m not saying which are which!

Part One: Muppets Teach the 3 Rs (Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic)

Reading: On Sesame Street, reading lessons abound.  The Muppet Show has its fair share of teachable moments.  One of my favorites is opera star Samuel Ramey singing “L Toreador” about his love of the letter L.  It’s beautiful!

‘Riting: The Muppet Show itself is a tribute to great fun writing, and mini-lessons abound.  From the Swedish Chef’s Following Directions demonstrations to Alice Cooper offering Kermit legal advice on how to get the best deal when selling his soul to the devil, the Muppets always offer good writing tips.  And there’s the classic Muppet advice for how to spice up a slow scene: when in doubt, blow something up!

‘Rithmetic: Where would we be without The Count?  Okay, so he’s mostly on Sesame Street.  Still, he did make a cameo on The Muppet Show, and he appears in some of the movies.  We tell children that “math is everywhere,” and The Count proves it.  Cross curricular connection: click here to watch everyone’s favorite arithromaniac Count his blessings.

Thank you, Muppets!

Return to Class Antics for Part Two: All the Subjects You Cram in after State Testing (working title, and I bet it gets changed!)

Part Two: Address students’ needs

This is part of an occasional series about Professional Learning Communities— I dubbed it Trade & Teach, a practice of assessing all students in a grade level and creating leveled groups taught by different teachers. It can work really well in elementary schools, but I have noticed the trend is to reinvent the wheel in the name of teacher buy-in. Rather than that, I offer Best Practices advice from tried and true implementation experience in real third grade classrooms. If you’re not familiar with Professional Learning Communities, read the Wiki here.

In order for Trade & Teach to be successful, the emphasis must be on addressing students’ needs.  Think about the strengths and weaknesses of students in each group, and address them directly.

I have seen Trade & Teach function in the opposite way— students split into leveled groups, but all teachers teaching the same subject—Chapter X.  All students take the same assessment a week later.  What actually happens is just leveling students, then teaching to the middle in each group.  Such a situation can arise as an unintended consequence of violating the rules of wise assessment.

Following are Best Practices for addressing students’ needs.  I have given examples for each of the 3 Rs: Reading, wRiting, and ‘Rithmetic.

Above-level students need a challenge that focuses on synthesis and application.  Regardless of the subject, they should be working on solving problems and functioning as independently as possible.  Try to put these students above their comfort zone.  They spend most of school well within it—which is not the best place for learning.

Reading: Compare a novel or short story to research on that topic.  (Examples: From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and research on Michelangelo and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Or Teammates and research on Jackie Robinson.)  Then show how the book used information correctly in some places and took poetic license in others.  Bonus: Write a short story using information about a certain topic.

wRiting: Create advanced material and be meticulous about taking it through every stage of publication.  Be sure to make the material fit the intended audience.  Example: survey classmates to assess their favorites, then create a newspaper, blog or magazine tailored to the taste of the class.

‘Rithmetic: Apply area, perimeter and geometry in designing a blueprint for a house.  Work within constraints—lot size, budget, time, materials.  Another idea: break a skill down to its component parts and design a small workbook to teach younger children.

***

On-level students need to work on skills maintenance—these are the students firmly based in the “use it or lose it” camp.  Without constant practice, they will slide, not grow.  On-level students also need challenges, but theirs should be scaffolded so students feel successful at every step.

Reading:  Practice fluency by performing Readers’ Theater plays.  Focus on skills with workbooks targeted at the components of good reading—comparing, summarizing, finding details, etc.  Read a novel together with scaffolding to ensure comprehension at every step.  Different activities for different chapters will keep things interesting: summarize some, create a timeline for chapters with lots of action, and predict when a chapter ends with a cliffhanger.

wRiting:  Work together as a class to outline and then write a five paragraph essay.  Students should spend ample time at each step and get teacher approval before progressing.  This way, mistakes can be corrected and techniques can be honed.  Children at this level would also enjoy creating comic strips to give directions or teach about a topic.

‘Rithmetic: Work on problems from the grade level standards and textbooks, but stop and remedy problems that crop up along the way.  For example, this group may be fine at 3 digit subtraction, but not if it involves subtracting across zeroes.  Slow down and focus on this skill.  A good scaffolded project would be creating a picture book that depicts multiplication arrays with a fun theme, similar to the cookies in The Doorbell Rang.

*** 

Below-level students need remediation.  I show them that the root word is remedy—a cure.  They need tasks that are like medicine for their skills.  If the kids realize that each task is designed to really help them, not just take up time, these students will work harder.  Whatever the subject, the bulk of the lesson for these students should focus on just one or two skills at a time.  However, a small portion of your time (perhaps 25%) should allow students to work on tasks that require using several skills, techniques or strategies.

Reading: Try to get a sense of what holds this group back.  Is it decoding words?  Or do students look at the first few letters and guess?  You may have to break this group into 2 camps to address each type of need.  The other group can read independently or complete skills sheets while you work with students.  If you want to teach whole-class, have students practice sight words, simple Readers’ Theater scripts, or word families.  May I also suggest the wonderful Little Critter reading series of workbooks?  They are pure magic at this level.

wRiting: These students probably need to practice with basic word families and phonics skills.  They also need lots of practice with writing complete sentences.  I also find that children at this level can benefit from copying fluent but simple writing—they see the patterns and get a feel for the structure.  You can teach these children to write paragraphs or even five-paragraph essays, but you’ll need to scaffold every step.  I would have the class make one outline together, then have each student work from that.  Did I mention that there are Little Critter Writing workbooks, too?

‘Rithmetic: Basic facts!  These students must learn them.  Spend a good deal of time practicing basic facts in many ways—worksheets, copying, games, flash cards, Learning Wrap Ups, computer programs—anything that works.  These students also need lots of help with place value.  I find that sometimes, learning basic facts is a gateway to understanding place value.  As students gain more confidence writing and manipulating numbers, the place value creeps its way into their number sense and your lessons are better received.  My free software, Best Times Tables Practice EVER! and Best Addition Practice EVER! are great for this level because you can scaffold learning.  Start with easy facts and work your way up.

This series on Professional Learning Communities Best Practices is made possible by Valerie, Donina, Bethany and Heather … an amazing third grade team!

Part One: Assess Wisely

This is part of an occasional series about Professional Learning Communities— I dubbed it Trade & Teach, a practice of assessing all students in a grade level and creating leveled groups taught by different teachers.  It can work really well in elementary schools, but I have noticed the trend is to reinvent the wheel in the name of teacher buy-in. Rather than that, I offer Best Practices advice from tried and true implementation experience in real third grade classrooms. If you’re not familiar with Professional Learning Communities, read the Wiki here.

Trade & Teach looks at all students in a grade, then creates groups based on students’ levels of learning or achievement in a specific area.  For example, if your Trade & Teach focus is on reading, assess students’ reading levels and form reading groups for intensive instruction.  The highest reading group, for example, should be the largest group because the highest  readers need less formal instruction, while lower readers require intensive individual attention, thus mandating a small student-teacher ratio.  Teacher buy-in results from knowing that the group skill levels are clustered, resulting in fewer strategies for student engagement and greater focus on learning. 

In order to assess wisely, you need a clear goal.  Are you trying to remediate a specific skill such as addition, writing complete sentences or distinguishing cause from effect?  Or are you teaching reading, writing or math in general?  Decide what you wish to accomplish, then design an assessment that lets you differentiate among the students in that one area.

It really helps to use just one measurement to sort students based on their learning achievements.  Minor adjustments can be made based on teacher discretion.  Overall, you’ll be glad you only have one variable to deal with for each assessment and learning objective.

After you assess, I recommend creating a spreadsheet or using an online grade book like JupiterGrades to store data.  Input all student test or assessment scores.  Then sort and print.  Draw lines and voila!  You have your rough estimate of groups.

Part of wise assessing is knowing how often to assess.  I recommend that you leave students in their learning groups for at least a month.  Assess too often and you’ll spend more time evaluating and regrouping than actually teaching.  Besides, student growth is often more apparent if you give children long enough to learn new ideas and cement them into long term memory before you assess again.

How often you assess is determined in part by the goals of your Professional Learning Communities.  If your goals are more specific skill-based, you might assess more often.  For example, you might spend a month on place value and related skills, then reassess before forming groups for a very different skill like geometry.

Overall, I like the general-goals plan for Professional Learning Communities.  If you sort students by overall proficiency in math determined by, say, a Star Math score, then you are better able to adjust instruction for students’ needs.  For example, one group might need to spend a great deal of time on basic facts while another group can focus on problem solving.  More about that in the next entry in this occasional series…

This series on Professional Learning Communities Best Practices is made possible by Valerie, Donina, Bethany and Heather … an amazing third grade team!

Great news!  My newest math learning product, Best Multiplication Workbook EVER! won two awards for 2011:  Dr. Toy’s Top 100 products and Dr. Toy’s Top 10 Educational Products.

“This innovative math workbook is useful for home or school, when multiplication is introduced or for remedial work in other grades. This workbook focuses on how kids think, how they learn, and how they have fun learning new material.”

Click here to learn more about the workbook and the FREE software you can download for addition and times tables practice.

Who is Dr. Toy?  Stevanne Auerbach, PhD, is one of the nation’s and world’s leading experts on play, toys, and children’s products.  Dr. Toy started her career as a teaching and reading specialist, helped establish the first childcare centers for federal employees, and founded the San Francisco International Toy Museum.  You have to love her for this: Dr. Auerbach was responsible for approving the first Department of Education grant to Sesame Street!

With 30 years of specialized experience, Dr. Auerbach evaluates educationally oriented, developmental and skill building products from the best large and small companies in four annual awards programs.  Parents, teachers and toy buyers rely on Dr. Toy’s guidance in selecting products for children.

Dr. Toy’s motto is “Let’s play!”  Best Multiplication Workbook EVER! perfectly fits Dr. Toy’s philosophy that play is educational, and education can be fun.  I totally agree with Dr. Toy that one of the best teaching techniques (EVER!) is helping kids discover that learning is fun!

Thank you, Dr. Toy!

Kids and teachers know: back to school is the real New Year. Kids are full of nervous jitters at this exciting time. You can really help by reviewing key concepts before the first day of school.

Ideally, you followed some sort of program to combat summer slide, that significant decline in skills over the prolonged time off. Regardless, a concerted effort the week before school starts can make a difference.

Review basic math facts! I can’t stress this enough. Your child needs to get the same (correct) answer every time. Quick test: ask your child what 5+8 is. If your child doesn’t answer immediately, she needs to study. If your child was super-slow to solve 5+8, back up with easier problems like 3+2, and, last ditch, 3+1. The results might horrify surprise you.

Use flash cards, math games, drill worksheets from Dad’s Worksheets, or my free software: Best Times Tables Practice EVER! and Best Addition Practice EVER!

Students experience summer slide in every subject.  Here are some fun tips for helping your child with a difficult topic: estimating.

By estimating, I mean two different skills.  One is estimating measurements.  The other is using rounding to estimate an answer to a problem.  (526 +375 = about 900 if you round to the nearest hundred)

Fun with a tape measure*:  Simply give your kids a tape measure and challenge them to hone their estimating skills.  About how long is your kitchen?  How far to the sidewalk?  Is the length of your driveway closer to 10, 20 or 100 feet?  Should you measure the height of your cat in inches, feet or yards?  This is a pleasant way to spend a summer afternoon.

If your kids and their friends are enterprising, they could each make up their own challenges, writing little worksheets with measuring tasks.  It’s like playing school, but more active.

Fun with a scale: This is a lot like Fun with a Tape Measure, but with measurements of weight.  Your child can develop a sense of what things weigh.  How much does cereal weigh?  Dishes?  The family dog?  A book?

Shopping estimation: Running errands really does provide lots of ways to incorporate math.  Simply ask little word problems as you go.  If I buy this item for $2.95 and that item for $4.25, about how much will I spend?  Once your child is good at answering this type of question, challenge her to figure the rough amount of change from a nice round figure like $10.

*Fun with whatever—a tongue-in-cheek way to make any task fun.  Sort of.  It helps!   Read the blog post for classroom examples.

We all know that visits to the library are an easy way to combat summer reading slide.  Keeping math skills from sliding requires a little more effort.  I’ve taught many grades, and I can say that one skill most students haven’t mastered is ROUNDING!

Every grade I’ve taught has tackled rounding early in the school year.  I think it’s supposed to be quick-and-easy review.  Well, it isn’t.  It’s a math grade killer.

If a National Board Certified Teacher is constantly surprised that kids struggle with rounding, how is a parent supposed to know?  I really don’t see how you would, so this blog post serves as a public service announcement for Rounding Awareness.

Even now, having developed many ways to teach this skill, I still don’t understand what’s so hard about rounding.  I mean, take 53.  Is it closer to 50 or 60?  Closer to 50.  How hard is that?  Very, for most students.  Don’t get them started on rounding 50,453 to the nearest tens place.  They just fall apart.

As a parent, it really helps if you’re mindful of teaching rounding in daily life.

Examples:

1. This gum costs 63 cents.  Is that closer to 60 or 70 cents?
    
2. I want to buy 5 drinks at the fast food restaurant.  They’re each $1.19.  Is $1.19 closer to $1 or $2?  About how much will I spend?
    
3. This recipe calls for 1 2/3 cup of flour.  Is that closer to one cup or two?
    
4. Look, this movie made $83 million at the box office over the weekend.  What a blockbuster!  Is 83 closer to 80 or 90?
     
5. This meal costs $5.85.  Is $5.85 closer to $5 or $6?

A few rounding worksheets would be really helpful.  I recommend you print them from the rounding section on Dad’s Worksheets and/or Math-aids.com.  The worksheets help with something incidental real-world rounding doesn’t address: taking the same number and rounding it to the nearest tens, hundreds or thousands place.  For that skill, it really helps kids to see the number in black and white.

Your child can practice rounding on computer games.  Click here for a site with some fun games.  They are all good; my students love Rounding Sharks.

A visual technique for teaching rounding: The Rounding Hill.  As an example of rounding to the nearest 10,  this diagram shows why you round up when the ones digit is 5 or more.  Many kids think that 5 could go either way because they mistakenly believe 5 is exactly in the middle.  The Rounding Hill shows that there is no middle number, as there are 5 numbers on either side of the hill.  The Rounding Hill really helps most students, and I often see them drawing this diagram on their math tests to serve as a reference point.

Despite what you may hear, I still believe that worksheets are fun and educational.  They’re efficient and give a nice sense of accomplishment.  Doing worksheets for a student is kind of like doing calisthenics for a Marine.  It’s just something you do.  You know it’s beneficial, you enjoy it, and you don’t question it.

You know the great feeling of opening a brand-new box of crayons?  That’s how a lot of kids feel about a brand-new workbook.  You can hear the binding crack as you open it.  The pages smell like paper and ink and promise.  This workbook hasn’t been messed up yet, there are no doodles and ripped pages, and every sheet offers the promise of a nice fat A+.

Lots of kids really would welcome a summer workbook.  You can buy them at teaching stores like Lakeshore Learning, office stores, discount stores like Walmart and Target, dollar stores, grocery stores, book stores (Barnes & Noble has a large workbook section near kids’ books), club stores like Sam’s Club and Costco, and drugstores.  Once your eyes are opened, you’ll start seeing workbooks everywhere.

Here are some recommendations:

Spectrum series: they have a workbook for every subject and grade level.  The primary level Little Critter series are the most fun.  Click here to learn about the wonders of Little Critter Reading, a workbook so great that I won a grant to buy a copy for each of my students.

Evan-Moor also creates workbooks for every subject.  They have a great poetry series, and their fiction and nonfiction workbooks are both educational and interesting.  The science workbooks are fun because they teach nonfiction reading skills and science, a topic that is now taught mostly through activities, so kids don’t have much actual science knowledge like you’d get from a book.  Teachers love the Daily Math Practice and Daily Language Review books.  I also like Daily Paragraph Editing, but most kids have trouble with it since grammar isn’t taught explicitly anymore.

Brain Quest workbooks cover all subjects for one grade.  This is a good all-summer-long review/preview of everything.

Scholastic Success With…is similar to Brain Quest and covers all subjects for one grade.

Summer Bridge Activities is another good review/preview book and is available at teaching stores.

And, of course, Best Multiplication Workbook EVER! is great for all you math buffs.   It covers multiplication, from learning the facts to mastering long multiplication and word problems.

If you can keep your child’s reading and math skills sharp this summer, you’ll both reap the rewards for all of next school year—and every year to come.

Place value is a biggie in math education.  All other math concepts depend on it.  Most children have a hard time with place value.  They do all right with tens and ones, but start to crumple as the numbers get bigger.  Here are some fun computer games to help your youngster sharpen those place value skills.

Toon University: Answer the place value question, then play an old-style arcade game to celebrate correct answers.  3 levels. 

Base Ten Blocks: These are familiar teaching tools to your child, if not you.  Ironically enough, it’s really important to practice with them because this teaching tool, the base ten block, is now an assessment tool.  Standardized tests ask questions about them like you’re supposed to know what they are.  I always wonder what international students think of this.  Anyway, it’s a fun game, although I turn the sound off because I find the music stressful.

Shark Pool Place Value Game: You look at the number of blocks, then select the written number that matches.  If you guess incorrectly, a shark takes a bite out of your surfboard.  This game uses regular blocks, not place value blocks.  Your child will become more adept at quickly subtracting from 10—you see a line of 10 blocks and a line next to it with 2 fewer blocks—that’s 18.

Lots of cool games in one place: These are nice because a variety of numbers are represented.  Your child can practice with tens and ones or hundred thousands, depending on the game.  My class loves this site.

Mastering multiplication facts is a hard-won skill for most students, and they can easily lose it all over the summer.  Here are tips on how parents and kids can work together to keep those math skills sharp.  Everything on this list is quick and easy, and none of it interferes with summer fun.

1. Start with song: yes, they’re my own work, but the award-winning Best Multiplication Songs EVER! really are the best.  In just eight minutes a day, you can sing all your times tables with tunes you already know.  Slip them into your daily routine—play them in the car, while doing chores, or dance to them for a quick workout.
    
2. Flash card drill: stop by the Dollar Store (or any discount store, grocery store, or drugstore) and pick up a box of flash cards.  Then be smart with how you practice.  First, go through the stack and separate facts your child knows from facts your child needs to learn.  Review the “know them” facts daily.  Add about 3 new facts a day, always practicing the old ones.  By the end of summer, your youngster will know the facts cold.
    
3. FREE Computer Practice: I have an electronic version of the flash card drill—the FREE customizable Best Times Tables Practice EVER!  Download this program and let kids practice at their own pace: just the fives, just the tens, only the easy sevens, all the hard facts—you name it.
    
4. Math toys: visit Amazon.com or a local teaching store like Lakeshore Learning for fun multiplication toys.  Multiplication wrap-ups are eternally popular.  You can also find self-correcting multiplication games and board games like Multiplication Bingo.
    
5. Worksheets: Most of my students still need an old-fashioned worksheet to cement learning, and they like a worksheet’s inherent efficiency.  For no-frills practice, print worksheets from Dadsworksheets.com.  Use the Spaceship Math for leveled practice or print conventional one-times-table-at-a-time worksheets.

The best worksheets, of course, come from Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!  From memorizing that first fact to mastering 3 digit multiplication, it provides fun, quality, relevant practice.  Dozens and dozens of real-life word problems highlight the importance of multiplication in our daily lives.  There are certificates for every level, making it easy to track and reward progress.

I have found that kids have no problem calculating area and perimeter, provided they can both add and multiply.  The problem is remembering which is which.

In our class, we have a fun way of remembering the difference between the two concepts.  It’s loosely based on my background as a military brat, with a heavy influence from battle scenes in movies.

You know how in movies, the commander will tell his troops to secure the perimeter?  The soldiers race to secure the boundaries so no one can get in.  The classroom version: we spread out, each taking a section of the four walls in our classroom.  Then we remember that perimeter is the boundary of a two dimensional figure.

We “retreat to the main area” when it’s clear that our defenses have been breached.  We hit the decks in the wide-open middle of our classroom.  That way, we remember that the area is the space in the middle.

Vocabulary connection: the word “perimeter” comes from peri, meaning around and meter, meaning measure.  Therefore, perimeter means to measure the distance around the shape.  There are lots of other peri words, but they are mostly scientific.  Most kids should know the word periscope, a device that lets a submariner look around.

It’s the time of year when standardized tests take center stage in schools.  My students (third grade) took a high-stakes standardized test; for most, it’s the first time in their young lives in the testing environment.  I wrote about this challenge last year:

How kids take standardized testsHow to make State Achievement Test week AWESOME (for teachers)

Dos and Don’ts for the State Writing Test

Links for parents looking for information on how to help their students: 

Disney Family Website Article: What Every Parent Should Know About Standardized Testing  “Thirty years ago, American school children spent two or three days a year bubbling in answers on standardized tests. Today, children in some school districts spend as much as 18 days per 180-day school year on standardized testing.”

 Testing Our Schools: A Guide for Parents  “This guide will answer some of your questions and give you information about testing. Use the guide to help you understand more about school testing, define your questions and concerns, and help your child prepare for taking tests.”

There’s an entire section of my new book, Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!  that deals with standardized test taking strategies.  Most students take standardized tests for the first time in third grade, and third grade is when the curriculum emphasizes developing multiplication skills.  My workbook deconstructs word problems and strategies to identify the correct answer to multiple choice questions, skills that apply to far more than just getting multiplication problems right.

This post is part of a series of standardized test prep posts.

Here is a really simple trick that lets you quickly eliminate wrong answers on multiple choice multiplication tests!

Check just the ones digits in the problem.  Multiply quickly in your head, and you will know what the ones digit must be in the correct answer.  Cross off answers that don’t have the correct ones digit.

For example, if you are multiplying 57 X 48, you know that 7 X 8 = 56 (multiplying the ones digits of both numbers).  The ones digit is 6.  So the correct answer to the problem MUST have 6 as the ones digit.

Save a lot of time by trying your new skill before you solve a multiplication problem on a standardized test!

Example: 486 X 592 = ____
a. 7,776
b. 287,712
c. 289,525
d. 64,293

Strategy: What must be in the ones place?

#1: The answer MUST be an EVEN number, because both numbers are EVEN (I teach my students they can look at just the number in the ones place to determine if a number is even or odd). Cross off answers c and d because they are odd numbers.

#2: The answer MUST END in 2, because 6 X 2 = 12, which puts 2 in the ones place. Cross off answer a because 6 is in the ones place.

Result: Only answer b can be correct.

There! You have the correct answer without taking the time to solve a complex long multiplication problem! You also can use the method “What Must Be in the Ones Place?” to quickly eliminate wrong answers to multiple choice problems using other operations: addition, subtraction and division.