Ms. Hand’s 3rd graders at Chamberlayne Elementary have been busy with a project called Multiplication Mentors. Certain multiplication facts can be tricky for students this age to master and Ms. Hand wanted her students to come up with their own creative ways to remember products to facts that lack a certain “trick”.
The project started with students researching the hardest facts for children to master. They found interesting information such as: males are faster at solving multiplication facts but tend to be less accurate. After a day of research, students self-selected a partner and decided on one fact that they could teach another student their age in an innovative way.
Students devised a plan of action with their partner of how they would creatively teach another student their fact. Ideas included but weren’t limited to a poem, digital poster, movie, song/rap, or a comic strip. They were offered the following choices of digital platforms to carry out their plan: Pixie, Comic Life, Powerpoint, Google Presentation/Movenote, or the apps, Video Star, TeleStory or Pic&Vid Stitch.
Once students finished their creation, we uploaded their work to Vimeo and compiled all of the projects into this Symbaloo that was posted on a page on the teacher’s blog:
My absolute favorite was a song two girls wrote lyrics for about how to solve the the fact 12×8. They wanted to use the popular Frozen song, Let It Go, and make a music video. We used the app, Video Star, and the instrumental version of Let It Go to make the video. Since Video Star is a “lip syncing” app, we imported the movie into Movie Maker and the girls recorded the song by doing a Voice Over. PRECIOUS:
The 12×8 Movie from Julie on Vimeo.
After the Symbaloo, a small group of students got together and created digital flashcards using Funnelbrain and embedded the cards underneath the Symbaloo. This made an excellent practice site for those hard to master facts! Head over to her blog and leave a comment for her class…they would LOVE it 
