Long Multiplication

Growing up in Canada, I was taught how to do long multiplication through columns and adding zeroes.  Since having the opportunity to teach over seas, I have learned a few tricks of the trades that not only make MUCH more sense but are quite simple and easily (they also take up less space on the page).

Long Multiplication:
When you are multiplying two larger numbers, we can actually make a chart that does the same thing as the columns and adding zeroes does.  This way, the students can see why we need to have extra zeroes on some numbers instead of just following the rule.  Here is how we lay out the question:

The students do need to know multiplication of multiples of ten (multiply the non-zero numbers together, then count the number of zeroes in each number and it them onto the end of the multiplication) and place values. 

I always instruct my students to think about the number of ones (digits/units), tens, hundreds and so forth when creating their chart. 

 

After creating the chart, all students need to do it multiply the numbers together and add all of the answers together.  By doing this, the students will be able to visualize what they are adding and what influences their answer the most. Here is the worked out example: