Array & Grid Paper | Mathematical Representation Tools

Do you struggle to reveal what your students really understand?

Do your students sometimes give you an answer, but you’re not sure how deeply they understand the mathematics behind it?

Mathematical representations can provide another window into students’ thinking — revealing strategies, connections, misconceptions and the extent to which students understand the mathematics they are representing.

This Array & Grid Paper resource provides simple, purposeful tools for students to show, explain and reason about their mathematical thinking.

What’s Included

Array paper for representing arrays, equal groups and multiplicative relationships

Grid paper for representing area models, shapes and mathematical ideas visually

Mrs Rowntree’s Notes, including:

The Big Mathematical Idea

What you might notice in students’ representations

Ways to use the representations

Why Use Mathematical Representations?

Representations give students another way to make their thinking visible.

When students draw what they have built, modelled or imagined, they develop a broader bank of ways to represent mathematical ideas and make connections between materials, models, diagrams and mathematical notation.

The way a student creates and uses a representation can also provide valuable information about what they understand.

A simple piece of paper can reveal a lot of mathematics.

A practical, versatile resource for classrooms where students are encouraged to think, represent, explain and prove their thinking.