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!!!

Multiplication Times...hee hee

Denise from Yearn to Learn just clued me in to a Multiplication Linky  Party by Adrienne over at Wiggins World.  She is looking for some good Multiplication ideas, head on over to her blog to help out, I'm sure she would appreciate it.  I figured I would write a post to share some of the ideas we do in our class.  We have a great time learning our multiplication tables.  They have already learned some of the tables in second grade, but when I introduce it to them, I use candy (usually Starburst) in baggies.  The candy gets their attention!  I put 2 or 3 starburst in each baggie.  I write out the number of baggies on the board, then write out the number of candies in each bag with it and show them that multiplication is just a faster way of adding.  Of course if they do well listening and learning their multiplication, they can have a piece of candy.  I also use an egg carton to show six rows of two equals 12.  Candy or other objects can be used to put in each cup to make other multiplication problems.  Sometimes I will have a few students come up to the front to stand in front of their friends, each student has two eyes, how many eyes total.
Then comes the really fun part, we have charts for each table and review each table several times.  We say them doing head, shoulders, knees, and toes.  One problem as they point to head, next problem as they point to shoulders, etc.  We also "ping pong" our tables.  Split the class into two groups (boys, girls, rows), first group says first problem, second group second problem, and so on until table is done.  If either side takes too long or makes a mistake the other side wins.  My kids often like to stand next to their desks and pretend they are hitting a ping pong ball to the other group.  Sometimes the girls will say the problem and the boys say equals and the answer, and vice versa.  Another fun review that my students like is having the first person in each row say the first problem, then they walk quickly to the back of the row, and the second person in each row comes to the front to say the second problem, then they go back while the third person in each row comes up, that continues until the table is finished.  That one is always helpful to hear smaller groups say the problems to make sure they are all getting it.  Other times I have each row or group stand and say the problem, then sit back down, while the next row or group stands to say the next problem.  One other thing  that  I actually just thought of would be to put the answers to a table around the room, call out the problem, say equals and have a couple of students see who can find the correct answer around the classroom first.  Keeping them moving in a fun controlled way helps them to learn many times without even realizing it.  My students really enjoy these.  We also of course do flash cards.  Around the World of course is fun, but I also play Four Corners, four students pick a corner and whoever answers correctly gets to move to the next corner, whoever gets back to their corner first is the winner.  Another challenge that I enjoy doing with them is having them add the answers to two flashcards together, really makes them think.
I also found sheppardsoftware.com that has great math games for kids, and they can be customized to where the kids are in their math skills.  I also love pages that have 100 problems on them, have the students work on them several times.  They have 5 min. to finish, then see if they can lower their time.  I remember doing that when I was first learning my facts and it helped me so much.
There is so much fun to be had!