Multiplication: quick adding
📖 In short
Each box has 6 pencils and you have 4 boxes. You could add 6 + 6 + 6 + 6, or quickly say: 4 × 6 = 24. Multiplying is adding the same number again and again, and times tables let us work it out in a flash.
🤩 Did you know?
- The times tables we learn have 100 facts, but about half repeat because 3 × 4 = 4 × 3.
- Any number × 1 = the same number, and any number × 0 = 0.
- Times tables have been found on clay tablets in Mesopotamia that are about 4000 years old.
- 11 × 11 = 121, and 111 × 111 = 12321.
🔎 Find out more
🌟 Rows and columns
If we arrange 12 chairs in 3 rows of 4, there are 3 × 4 = 12. If we look from the side we see 4 rows of 3: 4 × 3 = 12. The order doesn't change the answer in multiplication.
🔍 Times table tricks
To multiply by 10, add a zero: 7 × 10 = 70. Multiplying by 5 is half of multiplying by 10: 8 × 5 = 40. And the 9 times table has a finger trick: put down finger number 3 to work out 3 × 9, and you'll see 2 fingers on the left and 7 on the right: 27.
💡 Break it apart to multiply
To work out 7 × 8 if you've forgotten it: 7 × 8 = 7 × 4 + 7 × 4 = 28 + 28 = 56. And 6 × 12 = 6 × 10 + 6 × 2 = 60 + 12 = 72.
🎯 Multiplication in our lives
We multiply to work out the price of several identical things, the number of wheels in a car park or the number of days in several weeks: 3 weeks = 3 × 7 = 21 days.
📊 See it in a picture
🧮 Worked examples
- 5 × 3 = 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 15Multiplying is repeated adding.
- 9 × 6 = 60 − 6 = 549 × 6 is 10 × 6 minus 6.
- 4 × 25 = 100Four times 25 is like four quarters: a hundred.
📚 Key words
- Multiplication
- Adding the same number several times quickly
- Product
- The answer to a multiplication
- Times tables
- A list we learn of the answers to multiplying the numbers 1 to 10
🧪 Try it at home
Make a big multiplication grid from 1 to 10 on paper and color every square with 24 in it. How many times did you find it? What do you notice?
🧩 Test yourself
1 What is 6 × 7?
2 4 + 4 + 4 is the same as…
3 What is 8 × 10?