Did you know that addition and multiplication are almost the same thing? 😃
Once you can add any two numbers, you can also multiply any two numbers!
Let's learn how multiplication and addition are related.
Look at these bowls of cherries.
There are 3 bowls.
Each bowl has 2 cherries.
How many cherries are there altogether?
👉 We can repeatedly add the cherries in each group like this:
2 + 2 + 2 = 6
We can also write this as:
3 groups of 2 = 6
👉 We can also write this as multiplication:
3 x 2 = 6
or
2 x 3 = 6
Multiplication is a shortcut for repeated addition, or skip counting.
There are 5 boxes.
Each box has 3 pencils in it.
How many pencils are there altogether?
We could solve this with repeated addition:
3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = ?
We have 5 groups of 3 or 5 threes.
To find the answer quickly, you can skip count in your head like this:
3, 6, 9, 12, 15!
👉 We can solve it even more quickly with multiplication! It would look like:
5 x 3 = ?
or
3 x 5 = ?
What answer do we get?
You're right! We get 15.
There are 15 pencils altogether.
By the end of 3rd grade, your goal is to have every multiplication problem within 100 memorized!
But before you have them all memorized, you need to figure out how to solve any multiplication first.
The trick is to use skip counting!
For example, to find 2 x 5 quickly, just skip count by 2 five times:
2, 4, 6, 8, 10
So 2 x 5 = 10! 🎉
You can also skip count by 5 two times:
5, 10
It doesn't matter which factor you skip by, you get the same answer.
5 x 2 = 10!
After you skip count, do your best to memorize the answer by heart!
Your goal is to know by heart all the multiplication problems with answers up to 100 by the end of 3rd grade.
Great work! Now, ace the practice.