The purpose of this activity is for students to represent and solve “how many groups?” problems. Encourage students to use whatever strategy and visual representation that make sense to them. Students create a poster of their solution to the first problem with a partner. In the next activity, students participate in a Gallery Walk of the posters.

Monitor for students who represent the situation with:

• Concrete objects: Put 24 cubes into groups of 8.
• Drawings of objects: Draw 24 apples and then split them into groups of 8 or circling groups of 8.
• Arrays: Draw rows of 8 dots until it shows a total of 24.

When students represent the situation with objects, concrete drawings, or abstract drawings, they are reasoning abstractly and quantitatively (MP2).

• Ask students to describe how all the problems in this activity relate to multiplication.
• Display posters around the room.

The purpose of this activity is for students to consider what is the same and what is different about the ways they solved a “how many groups?” problem in the previous activity.

As students visit the posters, identify 2–3 students whose posters show particularly well that this problem is about finding how many groups are made. Select those students to share their explanations in the next lesson.

• Give students a chance to ask questions they have about any posters.
• “What is the same about the thinking shown on the posters?”
• “What is different about the thinking shown on the posters?”