Brick Playbook: Parent Edition
Bricks… They’re Multiplyin’
Explore the basics of multiplication and the communiative property with bricks.
Objective:
Child will understand the commutative property of multiplication.
Essential Question(s):
How does multiplication work? Is there a direction, or can it be flipped around?
Special Materials:
Paper and pencil for recording data
Bricks Required:
16×16 plates, 2×2 or 1×1 bricks
Project Structure
Engage/Explore:
- Distribute one 16×16 plate and 24 2×2 or 1×1 bricks.
- Ask child to lay out a row of 4 bricks on the plate, then add 2 more equal rows.
- Have child create a multiplication sentence based on their brick outlay.
- Child then rotates their plates 90 degrees. Ask them to create a new multiplication sentence based on the new orientation.
- Ask child to solve both multiplication sentences on a sheet of paper.
Explain:
- Ask child: if they were to do the problems backwards, would they get the same answers?
- Why or why not?
- Child should test their reasoning on a few problems and explain (commutative property).
- Ask the child to lay out 1 more row of bricks (at this point it should be