Partial Product

Partial what?  Are you telling me that there is another way to multiply?  It’s all about strategies and making sure that a teacher shares each of those techniques so a student can decide which way works best for them in finding the solution.  During my teacher lunch pow wow this morning, they were truly impressed with the capabilities that Partial Products had to offer.  All I kept hearing was, “Oh my goodness look how things move, visually this could really help our students understand this technique.  It’s as if the developer was reading our minds.”

Imagine your child comes home with this problem 91 X 41.  You hear them calling you for guidance and they explain to you that they need to use the partial product strategy.  Partial product reinforces multiplication facts from 0-12,  base ten and basic addition. Through the use of color coding and movement, multiplication of large numbers can become less stressful.  Here is what a user will experience while using this app:  STEP 1 – multiply 1 X 1.  STEP 2 – multiply 90 X 1.  STEP 3 – multiply 40 X 1.  Finally multiply 90 X 40.  From there students will use their knowledge of basic addition facts to find the solution.  As my fourth grade team members “played” with this app, they didn’t have anything negative to say about it but thought there could be one addition made to make the app a total package.

1) Would it be possible to have levels of difficulty?  Level 1 – For those struggling, would it be possible to have the problem and the solution move up together?

2) Level 2 – would appear as it does now.

Regardless of whether or not the developer decides to incorporate these suggestions, this app is a THUMBS UP!!!  It works right alongside the Everyday Math Program that we are currently working on in our town.  If you would like to learn more about the apps that Esa Helttula has to offer please click here or you can visit them in iTunes here.