Suma Vivekanandan

Teaching math through constructivist methods, where people build knowledge by doing activities, allows students to strengthen their understanding beyond rote memorization. Students develop meaningful contexts to comprehend the content and take ownership of the learning process. I share with you a few activities that I use to help students understand the concepts of factors and multiples.

Activity 1: Factors
Make two sets of flashcards with student roll numbers on them. Keep one set with you and distribute the other set among the students according to their roll numbers.

Now call out a random roll number from your set and ask the student with that roll number to come forward. For example, roll number 12.

Now ask the students who have factors of 12 as their roll numbers to come forward and stand in pairs next to the student whose roll number is 12.

This simple exercise will help you know whether your students have understood factors or not.

Activity 2: Multiples
Again call out a random roll number.
Ask the student to show the flashcard with his/her roll number.
Ask those who have multiples of that number to come and stand one behind another.

Once they stand in a line, ask the third multiple of 4 to come forward, the fifth multiple of 4 to come forward…. In the same way, you can also ask the first five multiples of 4 to come forward. So the students clearly understand the difference between the third multiple and the first three multiples.

Activity 3: Construction Knowledge – Factors / Multiples
Bring two old cycle tyres. Keep them overlapping each other (as a Venn diagram). Ask the students to keep the multiples of 12 in one circle and the factors of 12 in the other circle. Some may get confused as to where to keep 12, in the multiple circle or the factor circle. At this stage, you can introduce the concept of the Venn diagram.

Once this activity is done, you can ask questions like
a) What is the relationship between multiple and factor”?
b) What is the biggest factor of any number?
c) What is the first multiple of any number?
d) How many factors does a number have?
e) How many multiples does a number have?

As they do these activities, the students construct the knowledge by themselves.

The author is a mathematics teacher and primary school coordinator in Atul Vidyalaya, Atul, Gujarat. She can be reached at suma_vivekanandan@atulvidyalaya.ac.in.