This displays five diagrams and asks students to decide whether each could represent multiplication or division.

• It is important that students can explain how they think each diagram represents each operation. For example, Diagram 3, the array, could represent both multiplication (“3 groups of 5”) and division.
• Many students find creating a diagram or drawing a picture helps them to interpret word problems and choose an appropriate strategy.

This displays the Getting started on page 131 of the Student Resource Book.

• Encourage students to find as many ways as they can to use the seat array to help them solve the problem. For example, the seats could be added together using (10 x 4) + (4 x 5) + (10 x 2) or by subtracting the seats that are missing using (10 x 10) – (6 x 5).

This displays several diagrams that represent addition (C), subtraction (B), multiplication (A), and division (D).

• These diagrams can be useful for students to identify whether the numbers in a word problem represent the whole or part in an equation.