If you teach math, you are well aware of how essential it is that students learn basics such as multiplication and division. Of course math shouldn’t be all about rote memorization but if you believe it is a waste of time for students to memorize 9 x 7 = 63 you came to the wrong place. Yes, understanding is important. Of course, number sense is important. Students need facts to reason from.
Teaching multiplication is part of teaching number sense.
Play Making Camp Ojibwe to practice multiplication.
It’s free, runs on Chromebook, Mac or Windows computers over the web and can also be downloaded on iPad, iPhone or Android devices. Let’s take a look at the mini-games that practice math facts. To get to this point, log in with a username and password. Students can make up their own usernames and passwords or you can assign them. Any username that hasn’t been used is fine as long as it doesn’t have spaces or special characters. If the username already exists, try another one.
TEACHER TIP: We recommend you write down your students’ usernames and passwords
Students will forget these. If you are that super-prepared teacher, you probably already printed out labels with a username and password that is stuck on each student’s math folder. You people are amazing. As for me, I have them typed in the notes application on my iPad because guess who forgot about the labels?
The first time you play, you’ll watch a video that explains the game and how to play. You’ll also learn a little Ojibwe history. Each activity you complete, you’ll earn points you can trade to outfit your wigwam.
Select NUMBERS from the first screen and you’ll see the screen below.
Five activities for teaching multiplication
If your students click the top left box, they’ll play a memory game where they need to match the number on a card, say 45, with the equation, like 9 x 5.
The Multiplication Dog
The second activity from the left is the most popular, the multiplication dog. Each time you answer a question you get a dog, a bone, then water, then a bed. The most common request we get from students is more items for the dog. It’s on our list. From a teacher perspective, it is interesting to know that in the multiplication dog activity, you have to enter the answer, it is NOT a matching game.
The top right and bottom left boxes are the easiest. You don’t have to remember anything and you don’t need to type in a number. Just click on the matches. Get 4 matches for one point.
The middle box on the bottom is a division problem activity. Your students who have already mastered multiplication can jump ahead to that.
Tic-tac-toe Multiplication
The bottom right box is a tic-tac-toe game where each correct answer snares a rabbit. Students have to enter the correct answer.
Playing these games, students will answer 20 or more math problems. The questions are randomly generated, so they can play over again for more practice. Extra bonus, they are learning about Ojibwe history and culture at the same time.