Edufunzone.com

Want More? How About Four!
How about those four multiplication facts? Well, we refer to these as a “double double”. Double-double the number you are multiplying four by (double it twice). For example:

4 x 3 (double 3 twice)
3 doubled is 6, 6 doubled is 12. (we have doubled twice).
The answer is 12.
4 x 6 (double 6 twice)
6 doubled is 12, 12 doubled is 24 (we have doubled twice). The answer is 24.

Another way to figure the answer is to double the answer you would get if you were multiplying by two. So if you already know your two multiplication facts, this will be easy.

4 x 3
Well, 2 x 3 = 6, and if we double six, we get 12. 4 x 3 = 12. Easy!

Five Times Five Makes Me Feel Alive
Now, on to the fives. Much like the twos, if you can count by fives (and most of us can), you can learn your five multiplication tables very easily. What is 3 x 5? Well, if you count up by fives, when you get to the third number (5, 10, 15), you get your answer: 3 x 5 = 15. And so it goes. Now if you’d like to learn a slightly more complicated, but still interesting way of learning the fives, try this. For any even numbers you are multiplying times five, take half of the number and put a zero after it. Huh? Well, here take a look:

For example, 5 x 6 (6 is an even number)
Take half of 6, which is 3. Add a zero and you get 30. 6 x 5 = 30.

Another example is 5 x 8.
Take half of 8, which is 4. Add a zero, which makes it 40. 8 x 5 = 40.

Now, for odd numbers multiplied by five, first subtract 1 from the number, and then halve it and add a 5 to the end. Here’s an example:

5 x 7
Subtract 1 from 7, which gives you 6, and then halve 6, which gives you 3. Add a 5 to the end, and you get 35.
7 x 5 = 35
Let’s do another one:

5 x 9
Subtract 1 from 9, which gives you 8, and then halve 8, which gives you 4. Add a 5 to the end, and you get 45.
5 x 9 = 45

Simple Counting Tricks
At this point, let's look at some tricks for 2 specific multiplication problems: 3 x 4 and 7 x 8. Can you count from 1 to 4? Well it's 1,2,3,4, right? Easy! Well the answer to to 3 x 4 is as easy as counting to 1 to 4. You don't believe me? Well let me show you. The answer to 3 x 4 is 12. Put 12 in front of 3 and 4 and what do you have? That's right, you have 1, 2, 3, 4. Ok, ok, that's not very impressive right? I mean it's pretty to remember 3 x 4 without this little trick. Well what about 7 x 8. A lot of people have trouble with 7 x 8. But it's actually easy. All you need to do is remember that 5 and 6 come before 7 and 8. Do you get it? That's right, 7 x 8 is 56! All you need to do is remember 5,6,7,8 and you'll be able to remember that 56 is the answer to 7 x 8.

Click here to learn more!