Visual Times Table - X5 in Jellytots

Visual Times Table for 5 in Jellytots

Complete set of 28 slides - representing both the times table in both ways (0 x 5 to 12 x 5 and 5 x 0 to 5 x 12), the total count, a visual array and two times table number lines as a downloadable pdf for printing.

Visual Times Tables

Children are first introduced to multiplication as ‘repeated addition’ and ‘groups of’. We introduce the idea that organising objects in an array is an easier way to see and count how many you have. Think of a tray of Ferrero Rocher chocolates that is 5 across and 6 down; we can easily work out that there are 30 chocolates on the tray by adding 5 together 6 times. Counting on in 5s 6 times… 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30… to get to the answer. This is very visual and most children understand it because they are comfortable with addition. Combining the idea of arrays and counting on in allows you to be able to visualise and calculate how many.

Division is the ‘inverse’ (the opposite) of multiplication and is introduced as ‘repeated subtraction’ - how many times can I take 5 from 30? And therefore we can use counting backwards in 5s to work out how many times we can take 5 away from 30… 25, 20, 15, 10, 5, 0… 6 times.

The understanding of multiplication and division in this way is a solid basis for moving forward to learning the multiplication and division facts for numbers up to 12. They are the building block to understanding and memorising the times tables. Typically children learn the times table facts in the following order - the multiplication and division “Times Tables” for 2, 10, 5 in KS1 and then for 3, 4, 8, 6, 7, 9, 11 and 12 in Lower KS2.

However most maths aids drop the visual array and just look at the numbers, for example:

5 x 6 = 30

6 x 5 = 30

30 ÷ 5 = 6

30 ÷ 6 = 5

This can be quite a challenge for some children - especially children who are visual learners. With this in mind, The Maths Mum® has created a set of ‘Visual Times Tables’ which include a visual representation of the array / repeated addition in a very user friendly object… for example in Jellytots, Cheerios, Buttons and Skittles. They also support the idea of counting on, counting back in sequences of numbers and associate each times table with a number line and visual count.