Grade Level: 5th (or whichever grade you are teaching arrays)

Background: None. This is an intro to MS Excel

Vocabulary: Excel, cell, rows, columns, paint bucket, borders, arrays, resize, formulas

Time: About 30 minutes

Steps:

• Open Excel. Review the basics–how to identify a cell (where the column and row intersect), what’s on the toolbars, especially where the paint bucket and border tools are found
• Resize the cells so they are square. Here’s how you do that:

• • Select the cell at the top left where rows and columns intersect. That will select the entire worksheet.

• • Set the row height to 25 pixels by clicking the line between row 1 and 2 and dragging it to a 25 pixel size.
  • Set the column width to 25 pixels the same way
  • When yo click out of the en

• tire worksheet selection, the cells will resize. It’ll look like graph paper.

• Add name, teacher, ‘problem’ and ‘array as shown

• Add the first problem. I’ll use 3*3
• Add the formula underneath it for the answer

= A5*A6 (Excel automatically calculates the answer for the two digits in A5 and A6)

• Fill in 3 cells over and 3 cells down to create the array.
• Use the border tool–all borders to outline each cell in the array

• Have students do two more of your choice
• Have students create one of their own, to confirm that they understand

Extensions

• Fill in the row with ‘Problem’ and ‘Array’
• Change font size for the headings