Teaching Multiplication Facts
Using a number line

You should only venture into teaching Multiplication Facts when the concept of multiplication is fully understood.

Understanding multiplication is essential to your childs elementary math success. However, simply knowing the facts is not enough. Every child should fully understand what multiplication is first. Learning multiplication in table format will not be helpful to them when they move into areas such as algebra and geometry.

So when do kids start to learn multiplication?

Believe it or not - Kindergarten. If you have had a kindergartner come home singing 'skip counting' songs, you have heard them tooting their multiplication facts! Unfortunately, they don't know they are doing it!

The first numbers kids learn to skip counting with are generally 2's, 5's and 10's. So let's look at the 2's on the number line.

We are going to start at zero and count in 2's until we get to the number 10!

How many times did we count? 5 times, so...

counting by 2's 5 times gives us 10; or ...

5 times 2 is 10; or ...

2 added to itself 5 times equalls 10.

If you child has learned to count by 2's, 5's and 10's (being able to count all numbers between 1 & 12 to 100 is recomended), it's time to introduce the concept of multiplication with

manipulatives .

This time I will take skip counting in 5's as the example

What you will need for this exercise.