Academic Standard: Domain

Students build on their understanding of addition and subtraction to develop an understanding of the meanings of multiplication and division of whole numbers. Students use increasingly sophisticated strategies based on properties of operations to fluently solve multiplication and division problems within 100 (See Table 3 - Properties of Operations). Students interpret multiplication as finding an unknown product in situations involving equal-sized groups, arrays, area and measurement models, and division as finding an unknown factor in situations involving the unknown number of groups or the unknown group size. Students use these interpretations to represent and solve contextual problems with unknowns in all positions. By the end of 3rd grade, students should know from memory all products of single-digit numbers and the related division facts. Students use all four operations to solve two-step word problems and use place value, mental computation, and estimation strategies to assess the reasonableness of solutions. They build number sense by investigating numerical representations, such as addition or multiplication tables for the purpose of identifying arithmetic patterns. Students should solve a variety of problem types in order to make connections among contexts, equations, and strategies (See Table 1 - Addition and Subtraction Situations and Table 2 - Multiplication and Division Situations).