If your students know their doubles addition facts then multiplying by two will be easy to master. You can go straight ahead and grab your freebie or read below to see how I introduce multiplying by 2 and grab your freebie at the end.
The best way I’ve found to introduce multiplying by two is with manipulatives. Unifix cubes are a great manipulative to use. They’re easy to store and to hand out.
Write 2 groups of 6 on the board and have your students make it with their cubes. Kids will automatically make a tower which, I think, makes it easier to manage.
Ask them for the answer.
Because they know their doubles facts, they should be able to tell you the answer is 12 without counting the cubes. If they do count, remind them they have one tower of six and another tower of six. What addition fact can they write? If they know their doubles facts, they’ll tell you 6 + 6 = 12.
Now ask them to make 6 groups of 2 and tell you the answer. Remind them that you haven’t added any more cubes or taken any away so the answer will stay the same. This is demonstrating the commutative property.
The commutative property states that the order of the factors doesn’t change the product. If you know 2 x 8, you know 8 x 2. Knowing this property halves the number of facts there are to learn. It will also be an important mental math strategy when it comes to ‘trickier to learn’ facts.
Continue to make two equal groups of a number and see if they can see the link between their doubles facts and multiplying by two.
Strategies for learning the 2s facts
Once you’ve introduced the concept of multiplying by two, it’s time to look at strategies that make learning multiplying by two easy.
Skip Counting
Before learning to skip count, your students should be able to count forwards in ones fluently. Once they can count by rote, students can use skip counting sequences to work out the answers to the multiplication facts.
Repeated Addition
Multiplication can be seen as repeated addition.
Equal Groups
Thinking of multiplication as equal groups of an object is an important strategy. Give your students lots of practice to make ‘x’ amount of groups with ‘y’ in each group. They can also see the link between repeated addition and equal groups.
Arrays
Have them make arrays by arranging their unifix cubes into equal rows and columns. Arrays are perfect for reinforcing the commutative property.
Thinking Strategies
Mental math strategies enable students to quickly recall the answers to their multiplication facts. Each multiplication fact has a mental math strategy that makes it easier to recall the answers to the facts.
Independent Practice
Once your students understand the multiplication strategies, meaningful, motivating and fun practice will help them master their multiplication facts.
Multiplication games are a great way for kids to practice their facts but working independently on them is fine too. Not every math session has to be run in groups.
After many requests, I’ve taken these activities from the Multiplication Games and Activities Endless Bundle and adapted them so that they can be used by individual students rather than with partners or small groups.
Rather than having worksheets stapled together, you’ll find eight interactive practice pages in each booklet that seem like games, not worksheets.
Once you’ve assembled your booklets, all your students will need is a paper clip and pencils to ‘play’ each page.
You can include the page to show the link between division and subtraction.
Before moving onto the next booklet, have your kids color the grid to ‘show what they know’ and identify the facts they need more time with.
If you didn’t grab your freebie from the link above, you can click on the button below and a booklet for multiplying by 2 will be sent straight to your inbox.
If you’d love a set of multiplication booklets that help teach the multiplication strategies for each fact 0 -12 and provide your students with motivating practice pages, you can grab a set from my TPT store. Just click the picture below or click HERE.
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