Maker's Monday: Array City

   Dragging myself into work was a bit tough today!  It was beautiful weather here in New England all weekend so it was sad when the weekend was over :(  One thing that gets me through Monday mornings is the promise of Maker's Monday.  Watching the kids literally cheer when they walk into school on Monday Mornings is so fun to watch.  

    This weekend, I had seen some really cute array cities in some of the Facebook groups I belong to, and I wanted to give it a try.  I decided to extend the activity, since we are well into our "array" studies.  I decided to use division story problems instead of multiplication.  I also wanted to have students create their own building and then after they finished, match up with the person who had the building that fit within the same fact family.  Once they were able to determine their related multiplication facts they were able to see how the commutative property effects the shape of the array.  

   Since we only have about 20 minutes for morning work while students are coming in, I decided to cut out the story problems, squares, and math fact strip ahead of time.  When students arrived, I had created a slide and had it on the SmartBoard. 

This enabled students to work more indendently to create their buildings.  I was able to check in with anyone I thought might need a little guidance, but at this point, everyone was able to work their way through the steps.  Once their buildings were completed and paired, we glued the pairs next to each other on large decorative paper (I found abandoned in the copy room).  It was great to watch students discuss how the commutative property applied to their buildings.  

~Heather