Is That All There Are?

From OpenClipArt.org - PeterM

Is this how most students react to learning multiplication facts?
How much time is spent at school and home working on learning these facts?
Would many students say that frustration is a synonym of multiplication?

Have you ever thought about the number of possible products when multiplying the numbers 1 through 10? I hadn't until I started designing a multiplication game. I discovered the answer is 42. Not only that, but half of them are either one-digit numbers or multiples of 10. That leaves just over 20 numbers to learn.

Maybe kids could learn faster, and with less frustration, by thinking about and understanding how numbers relate to each other. In other words, by developing number sense.

100 Chart for Multiplication