The supplies: a box of Mathlink cubes (one of my favorite homeschool manipulatives) and our trustee whiteboard.
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So for 2 x 2, we would read "two groups of two." Then Jacob would snap the mathlink cubes together, and I would ask him to count how many total.
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2 x 2 in his math book, he will read it as "two groups of two" in his head and it will make sense. It's all about giving the concrete example.
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Then we moved on to groups of 5.
At the end, I gave him a challenge by writing out the multiplication problems without the words. Sure enough, he automatically read them as "one group of two equals two, two groups of two equals four," and so forth. I also had him continue to show me with the cubes as reinforcement.
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WOW! Multiplication in 1st grade!!???!! I can't wait to jump on board with Saxon
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