In our final activity, students reflect on their journey through MathBait™ Multiplication. In reviewing the various activities, they will determine the strategies they liked (or disliked) and identify the multiplication facts they are confident in, and which ones they still find tricky. Reflection has many benefits. It helps students become more self-directed learners and aids in organizing the information they have gained as well as highlighting how far they have come and how much they have achieved!

Part 1: Table Dash

Begin by providing students with an empty multiplication chart. We have included one below for easy printing.

Start by setting a timer for 1 minute. Provide students with colored pencils and ask them to start with purple. In this first minute, students should scan the table and shade any squares in purple of multiplication facts they do not know or they feel are difficult. Most commonly students struggle with their eights or values in the middle of the table such as 6×7.

Next, allow students 1 minute using an orange color to highlight any facts they feel are medium. Medium facts are facts they feel like they can figure out, but it might take more time.

Finally, allow students to color in the remainder of the chart with green. Green should represent facts they know right away. This will likely be multiplication by 1, 2, 5, and 10, among others.

Allow students about 5 minutes to reflect on their colored chart. What patterns do they notice? Ask students to complete the following sentence starters on a blank sheet of paper.

1. For any rows that are entirely green, complete the following: I can multiply by [row number] because. . . For example, "I can multiply by 1 because 1 of anything is the number I am multiplying by. Like 1×9=9."

2. For any rows that are mainly orange or purple, complete the following: Multiplying by [row number] is hard because. . . Encourage students to reflect on why this multiplication fact is hard, follow up by discussing a strategy. For instance, "Multiplying by 8 is hard because I am not good at skip counting by 8's". Have students then complete the sentence starter: A strategy I can use for multiplying by [row number] is. . .For 8's, students have many strategies they have learned in MathBait™ Multiplication. For one, they can skip-skip count by 4's. Alternatively, if a student is confident in multiplying by 4, they can remember an 8 is made up of two 4's, therefore, to find a value such as 8×6, they can find 4×6=24 and double it to compute 48.

Conclude this portion of the activity by providing students with a 1-minute timer to complete as many green squares as they can. Continue by allowing 2 minutes to fill in the orange spaces and 3 minutes for the purple. Encourage students to use the strategies they determined previously.

Part 2: My Plan

If students have followed along in MathBait™ Multiplication and followed the suggested pacing it is highly likely they are fluent in all if not the majority of basic multiplication facts. However, every student is unique and some students will require additional time and support for mastery. In this part of the activity, students will identify the games they enjoyed and the games they think will help support their fluency to create their own plan. It is important to remember that fluency (not memorization) comes from (1) understanding and (2) practice. MathBait™ games are excellent for practice. Students aren't completing worksheets or mindlessly solving problem after problem, but are instead engaged in interesting and entertaining novel activities to bolster fluency. Be careful to ensure your student has mastered understanding. If students are lacking understanding, practice will only do so much. In this case, consider revisiting some of the conceptual activities in MathBait™ Multiplication to ensure they have a solid foundation.

Allow students to review the games in MathBait™ Multiplication. We recommend providing time for students to replay any games that interest them. Have students think back on Part 1 and any multiplication facts they don't feel confident in; what game or games do they think will help them with these facts? Games in MathBait™ Multiplication Part 3 are great for building general fluency, but skip counting games in Parts 1 and 2 may be the most beneficial for dealing with tricky values as practicing skip counting will help students identify multiplies. In addition, strategy practice is a great way to build both fluency and conceptual understanding. Using the factoring techniques they have learned in this unit (Unit 7) can help by factoring one of the values and rearranging to make a more familiar product.

Have students pick 2-5 games they think will help them to grow their multiplication skills. Carve out time (as homework, as a warm up, or as weekend work) for students to spend 15-30 minutes simply playing. Reevaluate their skills each week and celebrate as they continue to build strong fluency skills. As students continue to new concepts, such as division and fractions, continuing to refresh their multiplication skills is highly recommended. In general, facts are not something that "stick" easily. Our memory works by building on patterns and connecting to existing knowledge. It is not uncommon for students to forget some of their multiplication facts. As with any mathematical topic, the less we use a skill, the harder it is to recall. MathBait™ games and activities are a great way to keep these concepts fresh and practicing over many months or even years will only strengthen recall. The great news is, by building a strong conceptual foundation, if a student's recall path becomes less traveled, their understanding will make it easy to refresh with little practice. Memorization does not work this way. Once a memorized fact is lost, it is lost. If you notice student skills waning, simply add in some MathBait™ games as warm up activities.