Arrays in the Real World

Arrays are everywhere in the human world. They help us organize objects and architecture. They help us partition space. And they can be powerful tools for counting. Have a look at this week’s image: How many do you see? As an adult, you probably immediately attend to the row and column structure and use it as a tool to think about the question. Students of any age will notice it, too, and with opportunities they will develop ways of using the array structure to think about quantity.

Let’s think about the many ways that students might use an image like this one to develop multiplicative thinking. It starts with skip counting, and then builds with other ways of decomposing and recomposing using equal groups. Here are just a few examples of ways students might thinking, but, of course, there are an endless number:

We have dozens of how many activities with abstract arrays on our website, but students also need opportunities to see arrays in the real world. Real world images show students that arrays are not merely an abstract tool for organizing space or representing multiplication. They exist all around us, from the windows on an apartment building and the panes in those windows to egg cartons and plants at a nursery. Images like this one build connections between the abstract and the concrete while supporting student to develop big ideas like thinking in equal groups, multiplicative reasoning, and area.

Try this – or any real-world array image – with your students tomorrow!

To multiplicity, cheers!

Jen Munson and the multiplicity lab group