Multiplication and division can be tough! I honestly wish I would have known about multiplication and division centers for 3rd grade sooner! My first few years teaching, I struggled finding quality resources to teach multiplication and division fluency. Teachers Pay Teachers was in the early stages and I found a few free resources to implement.

I gave my students timed test Monday, Wednesday, and Friday! I am not dogging on timed tests, merely stating my lack of preparedness for teaching math. Also, I was provided a set of workbooks and textbooks that had a copyright date of 1997. Yeah, my first year teaching was in 2012, so you do the math.

There are two things that I learned about later that truly would have helped me provide a more quality education to my math students in my first two years of teaching. I am SUPER embarrassed to admit what I just shared, but I truly did not know any better.

Which leads me to the two things I wish I would have know about my first year teaching; math centers and guided math. These two things would have CHANGED my math teacher world! 

How I Changed My Math Game

As teachers and home educators it is important to find effective and engaging ways to reinforce multiplication and division fluency outside of timed-worksheets. Math centers are a great way to make multiplication engaging and start building number sense early.

Math centers and math rotations are a type of independent practice with a game, technology, activity, or set of task cards. During this time students have a chance to apply the skills and strategies that they learn during guided practice.

Most teachers are probably familiar with math centers and how to implement them in their classrooms. However, new teachers and home educators that I know don't tend to understand what they are (with the exclusion of a few, especially former teachers).

For that reason, my goal is to encourage more new teachers and home educators to start using math centers in their classroom/home. Also, to provide both teachers and home educators an original and creative multiplication and division resource to use in their math centers. Well, that and offer a few ideas on cute storage ideas. You know, that need to organize is in all of us. It's just an educator thing!

Multiplication and Division Task Cards EVERYWHERE!

Here, let me give you an overview of what is included in my Operations and Algebraic Thinking Mega Bundle for 3rd-Grade. 

What Objectives do the Task Cards Cover?

Represent and solve problems involving multiplication and division.

• Interpreting products of whole numbers.
• Interpreting whole-number quotients of whole numbers.
• Using multiplication and division within 100 to solve word problems in situations involving equal groups, arrays, and measurement quantities.
• Determining the unknown whole number in a multiplication or division equation relating three whole numbers.

Understand properties of multiplication and the relationship between multiplication and division.

• Applying properties of operations as strategies to multiply and divide.
• Understanding division as an unknown-factor problem.

Multiply and divide within 100.

• Fluently multiplying and dividing within 100, using strategies such as the relationship between multiplication and division.

Solve problems involving the four operations, and identify and explain patterns in arithmetic.

• Solving two-step word problems using the four operations. 
• Identifying arithmetic patterns, and explaining them using properties of operations.