Y9a9y f9o9r Y9e9s9t9e9r9d9a9y!!

Oh sorry, did my 9's distract you??  Well, now you have some idea what it was like to be one of my students yesterday.  Except I don't think they were quite that distracted.  But they did come in with wonder and amazement at seeing all the 9's everywhere in the classroom!  OK, actually they came in and my little girl asked about one random 9 in the middle of the white board, and while she was asking that, my tough cookie little boy just looks at her and says, "Ummm, hello, do you not see them all around the room??!?"  Oh the sweetness from that one!  After his comment she looked around and noticed all of the others.

Can you find all of them in this picture?  There is one that the kids still haven't found yet!

Yes, even I had a 9 on!

These are just a few of them.  I think I had about 50 around the room.  Did you find them all in the pictures?  I also had more in the hallway and office.  I had other teachers tell me that their kids were getting excited finding the 9's in the hallway. :)
After seeing them all over the room my students started trying to figure out what they were for.  My little girl did figure it out, but of course I wasn't going to let her know that yet!  At the appointed time...after some Math review, I gave a little shout and cheer for 9!  I told the students that we were going to be learning our 9 Multiplication table!  I told them this is one amazing table and that they needed to put on and tighten their seat belts because they were going to be blown away by all of the awesomeness!  First, when looking at the answers, the tens place counts in order from 1-9!  Second, the ones place counts backwards from 9-0!  Third, and I love this one...the answers switch number places!  For example, 2x9=18 and 9x9=81, 3x9=27 and 8x9=72, 4x9=36 and 7x9=63, etc.  How cool is that??  Fourth, another fun fact is that if you add the answer numbers together they all equal 9 (1+8, 2+7, 3+6, 4+5, etc.), even when you get down to 11x9=99, add the 9+9 together and it equals 18, which when you add those together, again they equal 9!  Even 12x9=108, 1+0+8=9!  How I love that!  Then, I saved the best for last!!!  Hold on, you will be even more blown away!  Hold your hands out in front of you, with the back side of your hands facing you.  Let's say the problem is 9x4, count over 4 fingers on your left hand, put that 4th finger down, the fingers to the left of that finger are counted by tens, and to the right of it are counted by ones.  So, you will end up with 3 fingers to the left (30), and 6 fingers to the right (6), so it ends up being 36!  That can be done up to 9x10, the pinky on your right hand would be put down, then their are 9 fingers to the left of it, when you count by tens, it is 90!  I hope that made sense, because that is such a cool tool to use for the 9 table!!  Well, it did blow my students away!  Here's the proof:

They were very excited about what they learned!  Then because of the 9's in the hallway and office, when people asked what the 9's were for, they could share and review all of the fun things that they learned!  I love 9 day!!!