Good grief!  As if adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing weren’t enough, now the kids have to put these patterns on tables???  Yup!  It seems daunting at times, but there are many great ways to make this skill concrete and help kids understand relationships on tables!  It can even be FUN if you let it!

When teaching my students about tables I like to start by bringing real items into class to use while making tables!  For example, I bring in toy cars and let the kids play for a minute or two before getting serious!

When we get serious, we use the cars to count wheels and make tables!  As we make the tables we discuss the relationship between the number of cars and wheels. Continue reading →