At nearly every parent/teacher conference I had at the end of third quarter, the topic of math strategies kept coming up. Most everyone mentioned that they want to help their child at home with morning work math, but a lot of the strategies we use to build conceptual understanding are strategies that you and I did not learn when we were in school. One in particular is called the bow-tie strategy, and it is used to help students with two-digit multiplication.
I've found a couple of great videos that demonstrate how to multiply with this method. It is important to understand that this isn't the strategy we want our kids to use their whole lives. The bow-tie method is just a stepping stone to help fourth graders understand the concept behind two-digit multiplication. We don't want to teach our kids a multiplication strategy without first teaching them what it all means. Students are more likely to be successful in later math classes and have less anxiety about math if they have a conceptual understand of the math strategies they are using.
Bow-tie helps show kids what they are actually doing when they multiply. Once they have that concept down, we will then teach them the algorithm (the way you and I were taught) which is faster and more efficient.
Here are a couple of great videos to demonstrate. I encourage you to watch these along with your fourth grader if he/she is having any trouble with this math strategy.
Please let me know if you have any questions!
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