Teaching Multiples and Factors through games

Grade 5, Mathematics

Ramakrishnan, PST, GPS Sulthanpet

Objectives:

• Identify the multiples of 4, 5, 6 and 7.
• Identify the factors of a number.

Materials Required:

A pair of dice, chart, sketch pens.

A play board is prepared by drawing 4 circles on the chart paper, Multiples of 4, 5, 6 and 7. Teachers can change the numbers as per their need.

Figure 1: The Play board

Process of the Game:

I divided 10 students into two groups, Team A and Team B. Each group had five students. At first a boy from Team A rolled the pair of dice. It showed 5 and 4. He made the number 45. It was a multiple of 5, so he wrote the number 45 in the ‘Multiples of 5’ circle. (54 was also a possibility but was not taken into the ‘Multiples of 6’ circle)

Figure 2: Team A rolling dice               

Figure 3: Team B rolling dice

Then one student from Team B rolled the dice. It showed 1 and 3. Since 13 and 31 were not multiples of any of the numbers, none could be written in the circles.

Each team got 5 turns. The winning team was the team which had written many numbers. Here, Team A had written many numbers and won the game.

The students felt very happy to play the game and also learn. The game helped the students to make a number and easily understand factors of that number. They recognized multiples of each number quickly. This game helped in peer teaching and learning within the group.

It was a very good game to re-inforce the concept of multiples. The understanding of multiples would help the teacher to teach ‘Factors’.

Assessment:  I asked the students in both teams to write the work in their notebooks. As one team rolled the dice, the other team was working out in their notebook to know whether it was right or not.  While doing the activity, the team helped those who were struggling to get the answer. I also encouraged the teams to work out and find the answer.

It worked well in my class but if needed, teachers could change the activity. i.e. they could increase the number of dice or increase the number of circles etc., to make it a higher level activity.