Materials for the lesson

1. Various numbers of vegetables –from paper or plastic, matching the number of pupils in the class.

Layout of the classroom

The classroom should be empty. All desks and chairs are put aside to create a free space in the middle.

Phase 1

The teacher explains multiplication and division through visualization of several mathematical problems.

On the classboard he/she has written several problems without the solution like:

3×5=…, 7×3=…, 8×2=… etc

12:2 = …, 21:3 =, 24:4=…etc

The pupils help putting aside desks and chairs to free the middle of the room.

Phase 2

The teachers visualizes multiplication problems. For instance 3×5=… He/she creates 3 groups of 5 pupils and asks rest how much is the solution. The teacher uses the plastic vegetables, and gives the pupils the numbers from the problem. Then the problem sounds like that: ‘There are 3 groups of 5 vegetables. How many vegetables will be if we multiply the group of 3 vegetables 3 times?’

Teacher can make up 10 or more problems like this.

Phase 3

The teachers visualizes division problems. For instance 24:4=… He/she creates a group of 24 ‘vegetables’ and asks how many vegetables will be in one group if we divide the big group to 4 equal smaller groups?

Teacher can make up 10 or more problems like this.

Its important to keep the spirit of a game.

Phase 4

The teacher focuses the attention of everybody on the written samples of multiplication and division on the classroom board. Everybody says it loud altogether (or individually pointed by the teacher) and the teacher writes the solutions: 3×5=15, 12:2=6 etc.

At the end pupils and teacher bring classroom back to the normal order.