Go Forth and Multiply

In our house, these big calendars have been put to good use.

When GI was in grade school and their lesson was multiplication, I gathered up our old calendars and started cutting out numbers. Using a pencil, I made grid lines on a white cartolina and glued the seemingly random set of cut-out numbers and made this ... our MULTIPLICATION TABLE.

We posted the multiplication table on one of our walls in the room so that GI could refer to it as needed. Eventually, GI memorized his multiplication table and the table got rolled up and set aside.

It gets displayed whenever someone needs to learn his/her multiplication table. RD practiced with this. And now MyGirl is using it.

I expect that we will be setting it aside soon because MyGirl knows her times tables quite well.

Our favorite multiplication tips are as follows:

• Learn the squares first, they are in red.
• 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100
  
• Multiplication by 4 is simply multiplication by 2 two times.
  
• For multiplication by 5, think of a clock.
  
• 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55 would cover 1 to 11
• The 7 table is often hard for them so we try to get some of the numbers out of the way
  
• 7 x 3, that's Black Jack. Twenty-one.
• 7 x 4 is 7 x 2 times 2. 14 x 2. That's 28.
  
• 7 x 6, that's Black Jack times two. Forty-two.
• For 7 x 8, that's mom's favorite. Actually, that originates from 7 plus 8 which is 15. We were married on the 15th of the month, so I always consider 15 special. But we call 7 x 8 Mom's favorite as well and they know that the answer to Mom's favorite (when we are talking multiplication) is fifty-six.
• For the nines table, remind them that the sum of the digits equals NINE and that the first number is one lower than what is being multiplied by 9. Showing them the number pattern in the multiplication table helps
  
• to illustrate : 9 times 7 --> take one lower than 7, that's 6; 6 + THREE equals 9; therefore 9 times 7 is 6 3; it is 63 (sixty-three). This of course is due to the fact that 9 times 7 is the same as (10 x 7) - (1 x 7), and 70 - 7 is 63.
  

Am not sure whether these tips help them out. But so far, I haven't seen any of them flunk math. So I must be doing something right.

I do wonder whether the convenience of having a calculator or Excel readily available will render ME the next person to need this multiplication table. I think I'll be bringing out our flash cards soon. I can pretend they are for MyGirl.