Term 4, 2024: A unique moment in the classroom

At primary school children develop a conscious awareness of multiples. They do many activities and dwell on the concept through repetition and variation, while looking at it from several different angles. We deliberately use the term “multiple” and not “answer” to focus on a particular behaviour of number, rather than emphasising “times-tables”. Through lessons we take up the details and move towards working with multiples in our head.

In the photo below, the child had started thinking about … “why is 24 a multiple of 8?” (because it contains 4, six times) … “why is 24 a multiple of 4?” … and so on

I captured this moment on camera because at one point, after working out 8 x 3 = 24, I heard him say to himself … “Wait a minute, 12 + 12 is 24” … and he starts laying out 12, two times.

At this point I quietly moved away and left him to it. He didn’t need me, in that moment, to explain more explicitly that “24 is a common multiple” for many numbers. His own discovery and surprise is enough for now. He was learning by himself, in a way that was more powerful, that all these numbers: 4, 6, 8, 12, 24 are connected – they have a mathematical relationship, that later, he will learn names for.