Description
This set of 144 playing cards help children visualise and reason about multiplication facts.
Slavonic Abacus: The abacus image used on each card is that of the Slavonic Abacus. This abacus partitions the beads both horizontally and vertically into 5s. This enables children to quickly identify how many beads there are in both directions without counting.
Two parts: Each card has two sections – the abacus image and the multiplication fact. These can remain connected, but a dotted line has been added should you wish to cut the cards into two pieces, enabling additional games to be played.
Ideas for Use:
1) Reasoning about multiplication facts highlighted by the colour arrays. The calculation 7 x 6 = 42 has four ‘mini-multiplication facts’ (i.e. 5 x 5 = 25, 2 x 5 = 10, 5 x 1 = 5 and 2 x 1 = 2). Encourage children to reason in this way about each image.
2) Cover Up – e.g. players are given an Array Card and they cover up the multiplication fact at the bottom of each card. They then challenge a friend to tell them the fact written on the card and the product
3) Matching Games – Children are given a set of cut up cards and their job is to match the array image with the appropriate multiplication fact.
4) Square Number Hunt: How many square numbers can you see in both the big arrays and in the ‘mini-multiplication fact’ arrays?
