- 1). Select the period in history you wish to use to complement your lesson on multiplication. For example, you could choose medieval Europe or America in the 1960s. Linking a math lesson to a historical era can help students remember the lesson by giving them strong peripheral imagery that can alleviate the drudgery of repetition and create more complex idea associations in the brain.
- 2). List statistical facts (e.g., populations, income or national debt) of the historical period you chose. For example, if you selected America in the 1960s, the American population was approximately 178 million, the average salary was $4,743 and the national debt topped $286 billion, according to data collected by Lone Star College (http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade60.html). For periods without clear population statistics, such as prehistory, list groups of items. For example, you may want to write out the number of cave paintings found in Lascaux, France, or the number of modern countries that have archaeological sites.
- 3). List, for each group or statistic, a characteristic that is consistent for all items within that group. For example, if you choose the population of the U.S. in the 1960s, which was about 178 million, write "eyes" (assuming that the majority of the population has two eyes). For cave paintings, find the average number of cave paintings within each cave.
- 4). Instruct your student to multiply the number of items in the first group (e.g. the number of caves with paintings, population) by the number of characteristics per item (e.g. number of cave paintings per cave or the number of eyes per person).
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