How do you teach multiplication?

[dixiebuckeye]

This is like potty training and teaching reading, to me.  I dread starting and just want to be to the other side.  DH discovered that DD, entering 3rd doesn't know, and now the pressure is on.  How did you teach them?

[mrs.m]

I let the curriculum take care of the steps and drill for mastery. Does your math curriculum not teach multiplication in 3rd grade?

[sagira]

Oh gee, ds9 (almost 10) still doesn't all his multiplication tables, and he's still working on them. He's a rising fifth grader and seeing firsthand how multiplication would make all his problems go much faster.

 

He practices with his Math Mammoth (MM) curriculum during the year, and now that we're off school he plays iTouch app multiplication games, has a multi chart, and plays games on the computer (all suggested by our curriculum). I'm going to have him watch Maria Miller (creator of MM) online today. She has videos that explain math concepts. I know she has one on this very subject. They are free on YouTube.

[umsami]

There are some great videos on youtube for the various time tables.  You can go classic and find SchoolHouse Rock, or you can find more modern versions.

 

My son started by using a Kumon multiplication book.  He really liked it.

 

 

We also did this Waldorf multiplication chart.  I had him do one every few days (colors optional after the first time) to try and help him.  If he didn't know....say 7 x 7....I'd say...what 7s do you know? So usually he'd say 7 x5   or 7 x 10.   Then I'd say....OK...if 7 x 5 =35.... how many more 7s do you have to add to get to 7 x 7.... Two... so what is 2 x7.... 14.... so add them together.... 35 + 14=49.   I always had him work out the answers so he could see how it worked.  

 

 

http://pinterest.com/pin/231794712042677253/

 

 

He also liked Times Tales and a few different apps on the iPad.

 

It just takes time and practice.  

[Farrar]

I start with the concept.  Does she understand the concept and just not have her tables memorized?  What math curriculum do you use?  We did drills, but once we got to some decent level of fluency, I just had to move on.  My kids are getting faster now doing multidigit multiplication and division because it requires them to do more and be quicker.

[athena1277]

Make sure the child understands the concept of multiplication and can do the easy ones like 1's and 2's.  Then get Times Tales.  It will save you and your child many headaches and frustrations. 

[Sherry in OH]

My children learned to skip count by listening to Skip Count Kid http://www.skipcountkid.com/ and School House Rock.  Their math program teaches multiplication as repetitive addition.  My oldest quickly realized that he could skip count to find the products.  He now has many of his facts memorized. He skip counts or adds on/subtracts from known products to figure out the ones he doesn’t know. 

[dixiebuckeye]

She does CLE and can skip count the 1s through 12s.  I find that she uses the skip counting to figure them out.  For instance, 2x6: she might either count by 6's to the second one and say 12, or count by 2's to the 6th number and say 12.  For that reason, I think she understands the concept.  Would you all agree?  Times tales, looking that up now. :)

[dixiebuckeye]

Sherry, we were posting at the same time. :)  So did you do anything else to help cement it beyond the skip counting and get it to just knowing them in seconds without the skip counting?

[mrs.m]

She does CLE and can skip count the 1s through 12s.  I find that she uses the skip counting to figure them out.  For instance, 2x6: she might either count by 6's to the second one and say 12, or count by 2's to the 6th number and say 12.  For that reason, I think she understands the concept.  Would you all agree?  Times tales, looking that up now. :)

Yes, she does understand the concept then. Are you using the drills in the back of the book? What about the CLE flashcards?Another resource that has been helpful for us is http://xtramath.org and it's free.

 

Perhaps you should tell your DH that you are following a very strong curriculum and not many programs expect multiplication fact mastery before 3rd grade.

[dixiebuckeye]

I am using the drills, but her speed is so slow that she doesn't get through the page in the time.  I struggle with, do I keep the time crisp and move on, or do make sure she does them all and gets more review?  We are using the flashcards, but probably should be using them a little more. :blushing:

[dixiebuckeye]

I am using the drills, but her speed is so slow that she doesn't get through the page in the time.  I struggle with, do I keep the time crisp and move on, or do make sure she does them all and gets more review?  We are using the flashcards, but probably should be using them a little more. :blushing:

[Erin]

I start with the concrete.  Third grade tends to be the magic age when kids are crossing from concrete thinking to abstract, so most will still need manipulatives of some sort.  

 

And we start with the 2 and 5 facts because those are the easiest to remember.  

 

But we'll do things like everyone in the family gets 5 M&Ms.  (Four sets of five=20)  

Or, look at the muffin tin.  There are three rows of four muffins.  How many do we have.  Then we write 3x4=12.  Watch this!  If we have four columns of three muffins, we get the same thing! 4x3=12 

There are four vehicles out in the driveway.  They all have five tires (including the spares).  How many tires are in the driveway?  Then we write the abstract.  4x5=20

We also do it as repeated addition, so they see that multiplication is really nothing more than a shortcut for addition.

 

I also start area at this same time.  Rows and columns and how they relate to each other and they just happens to cover up space.

 

It's also very normal for kids to need to count their items' totals, EVERY TIME  :001_rolleyes:,  simply because they're still operating at a more concrete level than abstract.  It's not real unless they can see it happen.

 

Only after the student has a firm grasp of what's going on do we start drills.  If I have a student who has trouble remembering their facts while doing homework, they do repeated addition.  It's a PIA.  Consequently, most kids will pick up their facts faster so as to avoid the extra work.

[Sherry in OH]

We use MEP.   Multiplication is introduced in year 2b. You might skim the lesson plans for ideas that would work with your math program.  Students are expected to have the facts committed to memory by the end of year 3.  Other than regular math lessons, 

 

We adapted a game from one of the Life of Fred books.  We removed the jacks, queens, and kings from a deck of playing cards and set them aside.  Aces are ones, jokers are zero, and number cards retain their values.  We stacked the cards on the table, son picked up first two.  If he could tell me the product, he got to keep the cards.  If he couldn’t, we worked out the answer, but I got the cards.  His goal was to get more cards than me.  We played this for a week or two before he tired of it.  I may try it again later this week.  (Summer break ends next week.)

 

We have a subscription to MoreStarfall.com.  It includes a few multiplication and division games. 

 

Every few weeks during the spring semester, I gave him a blank multiplication grid and asked him to see how much of it he can complete in a set time.  Sometimes I specified the rows/columns I wanted him to try to complete.  

 

 

Sorry about the slow response time.  I am currently visiting my parents. Their Internet connection isn't the greatest.

[boscopup]

She sounds fine for going into 3rd grade. 2nd grade is usually a basic intro to the concept of multiplication ( which she clearly has), and 3rd is usually where the facts are drilled to the point of memorization.

 

Multiplication and division facts take longer to memorize than addition and subtraction facts. In fact, my kids usually memorize addition and subtraction with no drilling at all, but we have to work at least a little bit on multiplication and division.

 

Since CLE has fact drill built in, just follow the directions, and I'll bet by the end of 3rd, she'll probably have them memorized, just in time to do long division in 4th. :D

[CrunchyGirl]

The concept was well presented in SM and LegoMan mastered it quickly. So once I was confident he understood the concept, from there honestly it was those stupid multiplication rap apps for the iPad that helped him memorize them. We use the 19x19 app to drill a few times a week just to keep it all fresh.

[HS Mom in NC]

Skip counting songs and math manipulatives.

[fourisenough]

Xtramath.org daily (at least five times per week) for 6 months did the trick for us. It was frustrating at first, but she now has automatic recall of all facts through 12x12. Now that we're in the thick of long division, I'm so thankful her facts are solid.

[letsplaymath]

I don't even begin to push memorization until the very end of 3rd grade or sometime in 4th. At that point, my children will have spent plenty of time learning to recognize multiplication in a wide variety of situations, and they will be comfortable solving multi-step word problems that require multiplication or division. And they will have spent lots of time using mental math techniques (of which skip counting is a minor one) for figuring out lots and lots of multiplication problems.

 

In the process, they will have naturally learned many of the multiplication facts. Our memory work is primarily a mop-up job, mastering the toughest facts that have resisted being pinned down---like 7x8. And we use our work with the multiplication facts to introduce and practice several important prealgebra concepts.

[RootAnn]

Agree w/ many of the above - work on concept w/ manipulatives & things that makes concrete sense to her, keep skip counting, work on flashcards, keep working on the CLE speed drills. 

 

My dd#2 (a good two years older than your oldest) is still in the 'concrete' phase with certain math concepts that she's not strong in. She JUST finished Xtramath multiplication today. :hurray:  (I will put the caveat out there that it is the 6 second one, not the normal 3 second one. My younger kids can't get the typing done quick enough for the 3 second one. Changing from 3s to 6s was what made Xtramath doable for us.) I'm so happy with her grasp now. But, it took time!

 

Third grade is when you work on mastering your multiplication tables. You don't have to have them memorized before you start. (And multiplication tables are SO MUCH EASIER than potty training or learning to read in our house. Long division, on the other hand, can be kinda scary .... :leaving: )

[Holly]

We used MUS Gamma this year and each lesson focused on a different table.  Some were picked up in minutes (like 1s and 10s) and others (like 7s and 8s) took quite a bit longer.  We just went through more of the worksheets on the harder tables.  We also used flashcards, skip counting songs, and online drills.  

 

I agree with PPs that 3rd grade is the standard time to learn multiplication facts.  Our previous program (Singapore) introduced it gently in grades 1 & 2 as "repeated addition", but no facts were memorized. 

[Farrar]

I don't even begin to push memorization until the very end of 3rd grade or sometime in 4th. 

 

Thank you for saying this.  So many people seem to believe that all 2nd graders should have them down pat.  It was really too much for my kids.  We got a lot more out of dropping it and picking it back up again later.

[Erin]

My mathy kid didn't get his multiplication tables truly nailed until about 6th grade, actually.  He completely understood the process, but he'd have to count by 7s or 4s or whatever when there were some he'd forget.

[Heathermomster]

Prior to covering multiplication facts, ensure your student knows all the addition/subtraction facts to twenty, can read a clock, and can skip count by 2s, 5s, and 10s. We practiced mental math, used c-rods, reviewed the distributive property, and then practiced using computer drills after facts were down.

[Murrayshire]

We use XtraMath & Math Games from Right Start & Math Mammoth.  I just discovered and purchase some Math Bands for multiplication.  I explained how we use them in my new blog post today!

[letsplaymath]

... Long division, on the other hand, can be kinda scary .... :leaving: )

 

Long division is easier if you teach it with cookies. Cookies make everything better!

• The Cookie Factory Guide to Long Division