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

Monitor for students who represent the situation with:

• Concrete objects: Put 20 cubes into 4 groups one by one.
• Drawings of objects: Draw 20 apples and then split them into 4 groups.
• Arrays: Draw 4 rows, adding 1 apple in each row to reach 20.

• “What is this problem about?”
• “How could you represent the problem?”

• Ask students to describe how all the problems in this activity relate to multiplication.
• Display the 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 that they solved a “how many in each group?” problem in the previous activity. As students visit the posters, identify 2–3 students who show particularly well that this problem is about finding how many there are in each group. Select those students to share in the next activity.

• 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?”

The purpose of this activity is for students to consider what is the same and what is different about the “how many groups?” and “how many in each group?” problems they solved in a previous lesson and in this lesson. The discussion should highlight that in “how many groups?” problems we know the size of each group and in “how many in each group?” problems we know how many groups there are. In order to describe how the problems are the same and how they are different, students attend to the structure of the problems—what is given in each situation and what is unknown (MP7).

• “What did you and your partner notice was alike?”
• “What did you and your partner notice was different?”
• Share and record responses.
• As students share, encourage them to use the posters to show examples of what they notice.