Multiplication Monday

Aidan is still plugging away on memorizing his multiplication basic facts.  This past week he has worked extensively with the decanomial.  The decanomial (or Square of Pythagorus), for those of you who are not familiar is a visual representation of all of the multiplication facts from 1x1 through 10x10.  Somewhat In The Air has an excellent description of the decanomial.  This work is often done in a sensorial fashion in the Children's House and then reintroduced and discussed algebraically in Upper Elementary.

I used this material in a little bit of a different way, as I continue to look for ways to keep Aidan interested in the somewhat mundane task of rote memorization of facts.  I printed the decanomial available from Montessori Materials and Aidan cut it out into squares.

Then he glued them into the larger square.  He used bead bars and chains to help with that.

And then finally, he wrote each of the multiplication facts right on his poster.

In addition to the extra practice, he has been using his table as a way to help him with his abstract multiplication when he doesn't know a fact.  He came up with that idea completely on his own and I was glad to allow it!