Have you also wondered how to practice multiplication in a hands-on way ??

In today’s post, we are going to look at the 3-hands-on activities that we can do for practicing multiplication.

The prerequisites are: The child should be able to understand and know the tables. So that we can practice multiplication.

Watch this video first, on different way to teach tables in a fun way. And then come to this post for multiplication practice –

Now you can do their hands-on activities just orally, that’s also fine. If you want the written element to it, you can do it in written format as well.

Let’s start by understanding all the 3 activities.

The first one is with UNO cards –

Take the whole deck and stack it up. Ask the child to pick two cards at a time like 2 and 6 and multiply them using tables. Like 2 x 6 =12. Likewise, the next turn would be yours , so you pick up two cards and answer.

This is a fun way to use the materials at hand and still practice multiplication. Now you do the same activity in written format.

You can just draw these squares for the child and ask the child to pick up two cards and write those two numbers and then form an equation using those 2 numbers for multiplication.

Example – 3 and 2, if the child gets these two cards then the multiplication equation would be 3 x 2=6.

The second one is using Dice –

With Dice, you can play different games in order to practice these topics like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and even division. Use this dice and do an oral activity like 6 times 1 is 6. (6×1=6) or you can record it in a notebook.

This time I have done something different, here what we have done is 2 times 4. We got number 2 on one dice and number 4 on the second dice. So it becomes 2×4=8. Instead of writing this equation, you can use two colors for 2 people who are playing this game, and then color in the boxes. For equation 2×4= 8.

Here these are visually seen that there are 2 rows and 4 columns. So, 2 times 4 would be  8. So 4 when taken 2 times So gives the answer 8. The next turn is yours 3 times 2  u got. So what you do is color with different pen or marker and show it visually what is 3 times 2. So 3 rows and 2 columns. This is another way to practice the multiplication and children are struggling with remembering or you know understanding what multiplication is. You can show them this visually.

This you can do simply in a maths notebook which is a square notebook or like a grid of paper, grid notes come in handy, or just draw a grid of 100 squares and you will have it.

The third game is using domino cards–

The dominos are easily available on Amazon here or just prepare DIY cards as I have done them here. Now what I have done is, we keep on printing different games and printables see the remaining portion of the printables which is not used. I have just used that cut it into the somewhat similar size,  I was short on time so I couldn’t do the second side but you can do both sides, so you will have enough cards to play with.

Now here’s what the game is “A MINUTE TO WIN IT” so record the answers in a sheet or notebook. If you want to carry forward the oral activity with the written work so basically what you’re going to do is stack these cards and take one card at the time.  In the Domino cards, I have also made some cards that have the dots that dots are the original Domino’s concept but if you don’t have time to do those dots you can simply write the numbers.  Do whatever works for you but do it.

Let’s take a dot card, here we have a dot card 3 and 5. Keep the stack in front of you, pull out one card at a time, depending on whose turn it is. Minimum of 2 players are required, as it’s fun to do it but the single child also can do it. So we have 3 and 5, the multiplication equation becomes 3 x 5 = 15.

Now let’s take some other card 2 x 7= 14  you can ask the child to draw it or write it. So I have given some examples here. You can use the same ones or you can prepare your own and I would suggest that don’t keep this activity for easier tables like 1 to 5 and even 10. They are very easy, you don’t need to practice them more times instead focus on the tables from 6 to 9 they are very important and sometimes since they have bigger numbers as difficult for the child to remember.

If they are not able to find out what the answer is go back to this activity and ask a child or give a rough page or a notebook page of grids of the squares and ask the child to show it visually and count and see what the answer is.

So these are the three different hands-on activities that you can do. You can play it orally or you can also do the written form of it.

I hope you enjoy the accompanying video and if you do any of these activities to share it in our Facebook group or you can even share it in Instagram stories and tag me there.

Note – The pdf mentioned in the video above is shared in the Facebook Group. Please download it from the group directly.