MaTh activity Thursday: Multiplication

Multiplication is one of my favorite things to teach, so here it is for MaTh activity Thursday!

When I think of multiplication, I think 'shortcut'.  After all, if you understand the concept of multiplication it is not just memorizing, it's remembering patterns and tricks to be able to do a math problem quicker.  Take a look at a bunch of cereal pieces.  This is the multi-grain kind and I found three different colors.  There are 5 pieces in each group.

If the child knows how to skip count you can figure out the total that way, 5, 10, 15.  Or you can set it up as an array...

3x5 and we know that it is 15 too.

I know it is very important for kids to understand that they are not just memorizing numbers, but that there is a system and reasoning for the need to know the numbers quickly.

When children get into multiplying larger numbers, such as 219 x 24 they will be taught the regular method of lining them up...

but do they also understand the expanded form way of doing it?  I don't remember what this method is called, but if you do--please remind me.

I'd love to hear how you teach multiplication!  Have a great weekend!