What students learn
A rectangle with 3 rows of 4 squares has 3 × 4 = 12 squares. Every piece of every picture is that idea: the number of squares in a rectangle is its rows times its columns. Students practice it two ways:
- How many squares? The rectangle's sides are labeled (3 × 4 = ?).
- What's the missing side? The number of squares and one side are given (3 × ? = 12), which connects multiplication to division.
How the game works
Students choose a mode, a kind of picture (animals, pets, space, nature, sports, fashion and style, objects and vehicles, or a surprise) and how big a picture to paint. The picture is picked at random from 68 scenes (mountain lakes, coral reefs, rocket launches, owls in the moonlight, castles, hot air balloons and more), and every scene is drawn a little differently each time.
- Product Picasso (easy): rectangles from 1 × 1 to 5 × 5. Every square is drawn, so students can always count to check.
- Multiplication Monet (hard): rectangles from 5 × 5 to 12 × 12. The squares stay hidden unless the student needs help.
- Picture size: every square of the picture is one solid color, so the picture is built from the squares students count. Short, medium and long pictures take roughly 35, 55 and 80 pieces in Product Picasso, and 10, 20 and 40 bigger pieces in Multiplication Monet.
After a wrong answer the student is reminded that they can count each individual square, the squares are drawn on the rectangle, and they try again. After a second miss the rows and columns are numbered, too. When a piece is right, it paints in one square at a time with a running count.
The art studio
In Create My Own Art, students pick the rows and columns of a rectangle, solve the multiplication, choose a color, and place it anywhere on the canvas. Rectangles can overlap, be erased, and be undone. The Rotate button changes a 3 × 4 into a 4 × 3, and the game points out that it still has 12 squares (the commutative property). Creations can be downloaded as pictures.
Worked examples
How many squares? A rectangle has 6 rows and 7 columns.
6 × 7 = 42 squares
Missing side: A rectangle has 36 squares and 4 rows. How many columns?
4 × ? = 36 4 × 9 = 36, so 9 columns
Break it apart: 8 × 7 is hard to remember? Split the 8 rows into 5 rows and 3 rows.
5 × 7 = 35 3 × 7 = 21 35 + 21 = 56
Ways to use it in class
- Printables. A free worksheet with an answer key and a two-to-a-page exit ticket match this game, ready to print or save as a PDF.
- Warm-up. A short Multiplication Monet picture takes about five minutes; a short Product Picasso picture takes about ten.
- Fact fluency. Students who are ready move up to Multiplication Monet for facts through 12 × 12.
- Gallery walk. Finished pictures and creations are kept in each device's gallery. Students can show off what they painted, or download it.
- Design challenge. In the art studio, ask students to make a picture using only rectangles with exactly 24 squares, or to use every fact in the 6 row.
Discussion questions
- How can two different rectangles have the same number of squares?
- Why does rotating a rectangle not change how many squares it has?
- How could you split a 6 × 7 rectangle into two smaller rectangles you already know?
Standards
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.MD.C.7Relate area to the operations of multiplication and addition. The number of squares in every rectangle is its rows times its columns.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.MD.C.6Measure areas by counting unit squares. Product Picasso's squares can always be counted, and counting is the hint after a wrong answer.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.OA.C.7Fluently multiply and divide within 100.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.OA.A.4Determine the unknown whole number in a multiplication equation. The missing-side pieces (3 × ? = 12).
Access and privacy
En español: the 🌐 Español button in the game's top bar switches everything students see into Spanish. No accounts, no student data: the gallery is saved only in the device's browser. Plays with the keyboard alone, with a mouse, or with touch (an on-screen number pad appears on tablets and phones).