How to Teach Kids Multiplication

The concept of multiplication is an exciting milestone in a young student’s academic career. Many times children want to jump right to working with the numbers, and often forget there are some conceptual ideas they need to master first. One multiplication strategy they should practise is using equal groups.

Equal groups are essentially showing students how groups of the same number can be added over and over again. This correlates with the ‘x’ symbol which can stand for ‘groups of.’ If looking at the problem 4 x 5, this represents 4 groups of five. Students should be able to convey that this can be shown as 4 groups with 5 objects in each group.

Practise Using Equal Groups for Multiplication

Teach Starter has created an engaging digital activity to help your students relate equal groups and multiplication facts. With this teacher-created resource, students will be presented with 24 different questions where they must look at a given model and determine the correct multiplication fact. Students will then click on the correct multiplication problem, and a piece of the mystery picture will appear. If the student chooses the incorrect answer, they will receive immediate feedback and will return to the question to try again. Once students answer all of the questions, they will uncover the mystery image.

How To Get Your Multiplication Digital Activity

If you are ready for your students to practise relating equal group models to multiplication expressions, head on over to the green download button! Here, you can access the Google Slides and PowerPoint versions of this resource. Please note that if selecting the Google Slides version, you will first be prompted to make a copy of the resource to your personal drive before accessing it.

When assigning this activity to your students, instruct them to open the presentation in ‘Slideshow’ mode.

This resource was created by Cassandra Friesen, a Teach Starter Collaborator.

Looking for More Equal Groups Resources?

Don’t stop there! We’ve got more activities to shorten your lesson planning time:

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Equal Groups Multiplication Worksheets

Reinforce how to relate equal group models and multiplication with this printable worksheet pack.

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Introduction to Multiplication Strategies Teaching Slides

Introduce your students to different multiplication strategies such as arrays, equal groups, repeated addition and skip counting with this 34-page slide deck.

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Multiplication With Equal Groups – Colour by Number Worksheet

Guide your students to determine a multiplication problem for an equal groups model with this colour-by-number worksheet.