What is multiplication?

We have begun this term learning about multiplication in math’s.

Multiplication is…

A mathematical operation performed on a pair of numbers to get a third number called a product. In simple terms it is repeated addition.

eg: 4 x 3 = 12

4 lots of 3 =   3 + 3+ 3+ 3 = 12

We all learnt some new math’s terms on this particular day of learning. Mrs. Baldwin asked if we knew what a product, factor or array was. There were some great guesses and responses. We found out that a…

Product = answer of a multiplication question

Factors = the numbers that are multiplied together to get another number.

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Array: visual representation of repeated addition.

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We also had a discussion about prime and composite numbers because we discovered that some numbers only had 2 factors and other numbers had many different factors.

Prime Numbers: a number that has exactly 2 factors, 1 and itself.

Composite Numbers: a number that has more than two factors.

Knowing how many factors a number has tells us if that number is a prime or composite number.

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Mrs. Baldwin then demonstrated to us how to complete a long multiplication problem using the standard algorithm strategy. Check out these 2 videos that explain in more detail how to use this strategy.

 

We then did a mini investigation. Our investigation question was

Find out how many steps you take from where you enter the school grounds to the classroom door and back again in 1 day. How many steps do you make on this journey each week?

To answer this question we went outside to chose the place where we enter the school grounds each morning and then counted how many steps we take from this spot to our classroom door.

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We needed to find out how many steps it would take from this point and back again because we enter school at the start of the day and then leave school at the end of the day. Some of us started using repeated addition to work this out, however we soon discovered the quickest way to solve this was to multiply the number of steps by 2.

Finally we needed to calculate the total number of steps in a week (5 days).  This proved to be a little more challenging and together as a class we discussed how to work this out. We found out that there were two ways to work this out. We could multiply the number of steps we take one way by 10 because we would make this journey 10 times in a week. The other way would be to multiply our answer we discovered in the first part of the problem by 5.

 

What did you learn about multiplication this week?

When do you think you would use multiplication in real life?

8 thoughts on “What is multiplication?

  1. Hi we are from Mrs. CDR’s class. We learned about different ways to show multiplication like rows and arrays. We learned many ways to describe multiplication such as array, number line, and open number line. Multiplication can be used for job like a cashier because a cashier might have to give them change so they use multiplication to know how much change he/she needs.

  2. Hi I’m from Mrs CDR ‘s class. Indeed I’ve learned many ways how to multiply such as, open number line, Rows and arrays and e.t.c.Also I think jobs including multiplication,such as cashier,architecture and e.t.c.

  3. Hi I am from, Mrs. CDR’s class. I think i would use multiplication when ever I would go shopping and I get more then one thing because they are all the same amount. So if you multiply them all up, the amount would be faster then adding with addition. For example if there was a person named bob and he wanted to buy 4 t-shirts and they all were 21$ so if you multiply them by 4 it will equal 64. I know this because 21 x 4=64. so that shows that it is faster to use multiplication because I just got the answer in seconds.

  4. Hello Mrs Baldwin,
    I enjoyed learning how to work out multiplication via the lattice method. I have not seen this before, but after Alicia explained it to me, it seems to be a rather fun way to work out multiplication sums!
    I never knew there were so many ways to work out maths problems.
    Alicia and I discussed this morning how important it is to learn the times tables, as this makes working out the problems much easier!
    Regards,
    Jenny

  5. Dear mrs baldwin
    i sometimes use multiplication when i try to solve thing.
    I learnt many different ways to multiply

  6. Hello Mrs Baldwin,
    I learnt that two numbers are different then one number. I will use this when I have a job
    from steven

  7. Hi we are from msr.cdrs class. I like multiplication because there are many different ways to learn it.It is always fun to learn different way so if you forget a way you remember another.I really like when children could just say your times tables without stopping its awseome you will learn different ways.

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