Balance beam discoveries
http://illuminations.nctm.org/LessonDetail.aspx?ID=L319
A lesson plan for Grades 3–4 Mathematics
About this resource
- Appropriate grades
- 3–4
- Subjects
- mathematics (number sense, number theory)
- Provider
- National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
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This lesson encourages students to explore another model of multiplication, the balance beam, and another relationship, the inverse of multiplication. This exploration leads naturally into representing multiplication facts in equation form. In addition to extending their understandings of the concept of multiplication, students begin to practice the multiplication facts playing The Product Game. Illuminations provides a link to the Pan Balance-Numbers Applet, The Product Game, and detailed instructions for completing the lesson.
Students will:
- Explore the balance beam model of multiplication.
- Write multiplication sentences in equation form.
- Use the inverse property of multiplication to complete multiplication equations.
NCTM Standards and Expectations:
- Understand and use properties of operations, such as the distributivity of multiplication over addition.
- Identify and use relationships between operations, such as division as the inverse of multiplication, to solve problems.
North Carolina Curriculum Alignment
Mathematics (2004)
Grade 3
- Goal 1: Number and Operations - The learner will model, identify, and compute with whole numbers through 9,999.
- Objective 1.03: Develop fluency with multiplication from 1x1 to 12x12 and division up to two-digit by one-digit numbers using:
- Strategies for multiplying and dividing numbers.
- Estimation of products and quotients in appropriate situations.
- Relationships between operations.
- Objective 1.04: Use basic properties (identity, commutative, associative, order of operations) for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
- Objective 1.06: Develop flexibility in solving problems by selecting strategies and using mental computation, estimation, calculators or computers, and paper and pencil.
- Objective 1.03: Develop fluency with multiplication from 1x1 to 12x12 and division up to two-digit by one-digit numbers using:
Grade 4
- Goal 1: Number and Operations - The learner will read, write, model, and compute with non-negative rational numbers.
- Objective 1.02: Develop fluency with multiplication and division:
- Two-digit by two-digit multiplication (larger numbers with calculator).
- Up to three-digit by two-digit division (larger numbers with calculator).
- Strategies for multiplying and dividing numbers.
- Estimation of products and quotients in appropriate situations.
- Relationships between operations.
- Objective 1.05: Develop flexibility in solving problems by selecting strategies and using mental computation, estimation, calculators or computers, and paper and pencil.
- Objective 1.02: Develop fluency with multiplication and division:
