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Fun with Facts! Part Two

© Irene Taylor

Back in October, we looked at some math fact strategies for addition and subtraction facts. This month we'll finish up with strategies to use for the older kids when teaching multiplication and division. Success with these facts will help to insure success in future mathematics studies. After your students have mastered these strategies, they can apply them in everyday math work.

MULTIPLICATION AND DIVISION FACT STRATEGIES:
1. Some Multiplication Table Tricks:

2 times table - all products (answers) are even numbers.
3 times table - all products, or their sums repeat the sequence 3,6,9:

1x3=3 4x3=12, so 1+2=3
2x3=6 5x3=15, so 1+5=6
3x3=9 6x3=18, so 1+8=9, and so on.

5 times table - all products end with a 0 or a 5.

9 times table - if you add up the digits that make up each product, they always equal 9:

1x9=9
2x9=18, so 1+8=9
3x9=27, so 2+7=9
4x9=36, so 3+6=9, and so on.

6 and 7 times table - while not a trick, if your student likes football, score keeping can make use of these times tables, especially the 7 times table.

Look for other tricks or patterns that your child may use to remember certain facts. Here's an example: use 5,6,7,8 to remember 56=7x8. Your child may come up with her own special ways to remember certain facts.

Encourage your students to use these tricks to check work. If a student is working with the 9 times tables and gets an answer such as 38, help her to see that 3+8 doesn't equal 9, so that answer needs to be checked. Using these patterns can be a valuable aid to accuracy in computation.

2. Counting By . . .:

Have students practice counting by 2's, 3's, 5's and other numbers as they become skilled. This is a good way to reinforce the sequence of products of a particular number, and to get a sense of what products "belong to"that number.

For example, saying "3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27" will give children a feeling for the products of three. Later, if a student comes upon 3x7, and she has been saying 22, she will now know that 22 is not one of the numbers she says when "counting by three". She will begin to develop a number sense and an appreciation of the patterns within the multiplication tables. Start with the easier ones, and add

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