Student is expressing That Thing that happens so often (and is one of my irritation triggers, tho’ not a severe one): seeing one word and locking in on one process. Multiplication must be multiplication. How can it be division?
Fortunately, we have successfully — with lots of work with number lines and the big fat vertical ones on the wall, thanks Sarah Carter , nailed down earlier in the semester that even though 6 + -3 says it’s an addition problem, because it’s adding a negative, we subtract to get the answer.
We draw what 1/9 of 18 is… we know that 1/2 of 18 is 9 and are stuck there. We draw the pairs and show there are 9 of them, then show and reinforce the connection between times tables (2 x 9 is 18 … 1/2 of 18 is 9; 1/9 of 18 is 2) which probably is too abstract to stick for now. Takes manipulatives to get from 1/9 being 2 and therefore 4/9 being 8… but writing it out and then doing 2/3 of 21 in just symbols made sense, but with the comment “I didn’t see how that could be part of it. I just saw multiplication.”
My task: to be able to repeat the stuff 47 times without “the edge…” because honestly if I say “so you divide here,” and you say, “Do I divide here?” it doesn’t mean you weren’t listening. It makes me *think* I’m just moving my lips around but yes, I process hard stuff repeating back, too — just not as a question and it stays internal.
Still need to figure out those visual fraction posters!
Resource Room Dot Net Blog 
Posted on May 26, 2017
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