Sunday, November 24, 2013

Multiplication Time!

It's that time of the year where...if you are a third grade teacher...you are diving into multiplication big time!  Sure you've introduced fact families and such but you're about to start division and your students still don't know their multiplication facts!  I used time tests a lot in my classroom to help students track their progress.  It really helped them know which facts they mastered and which ones they needed to still work on at home.

My students always loved seeing their progress as they moved through their facts.  With those that struggled..I would pull them aside and help them practice and give additional practice tests to help them move up at a similar pace as my other students.  I used this in my classroom on a bulletin board to help students. I posted about this a few months ago but wanted to remind you that it's free in my TPT store if you are looking for a cute way for students to move up through their multiplication facts. The flowers each have numbers and students can move their bee up through the flowers.


I created my own timed tests after using several different free tests over the years.  I never liked how small the print showed up on the tests and I never liked how most tests had 50+ problems. That's way too overwhelming for a third grader!  So I created my own that included 35 problems which give you a wide variety and they let you know whether the student has mastered the facts or not.  These are available on my TPT store as well. 


I had questions from some of you about whether or not I had mixed facts tests for facts 1-12 for after you've introduced all the facts.  I hadn't created those yet but those are a great idea to use in the second half of the year when you are trying to continue with mastering facts but you've moved on to other math topics.  I created this unit which has 10 different tests that contain 35 problems each for facts 1-12.  The unit comes with an answer key for each test to make it easy to grade. It also has a tracking chart like my previous unit so you can track how your students are doing on mastering their mixed facts.  If there is anything else you are looking for to help your students master multiplication facts in your classroom, please leave me a comment. I would love to create something new!

Visit my store for these multiplication practice units!


Until next time...