60 Hands-on Ways to Teach Multiplication
May 9, 2025
Multiplication is a skill many learn in school that can support everything from planning a party to cooking to ordering food to buying something at the store. While phones and computers make it easy to solve any multiplication problem, having a basic knowledge of multiplication can be useful for day-to-day needs and quick on-the-spot thinking. If you know someone in need of the skill and want to learn how to teach multiplication, these hands-on ways will make the process fun and engaging for any student. Here are 60 hands-on ways to teach multiplication.
Before You Teach Multiplication…
Before you teach multiplication, your students should feel confident with addition and subtraction. See Math Dice Games for ideas.
You’ll also want to familiarize yourself with key multiplication terms that you can use in your lessons. Words like multiple of, times, and product can help reinforce the concepts. Here are some examples of how to use the vocab as you teach, supporting the student’s learning:
What is 40 divided by 4?
What is 2 multiplied by 2?
Calculate 7 times 3.
What is the product of 9 and 5?
Is 2 a factor of 8?
Give me 6 multiples of 3.
Three less than double of 9.
Moreover, we’d recommend reviewing these four multiplication facts. Teaching these multiplication ground rules can help students more effectively memorize times tables and work through problem sets.
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- Any number multiplied by one remains the same.
- Any number multiplied by two is the same as doubling that number, or in other words, that number plus itself. For example: 7 x 2 = 7 + 7.
- To find any number multiplied by 10, put a zero on the end.
- Any number multiplied by 11 is the same digit repeated twice (works only up to 9).
Start With the Rules
Most students learn multiplication best when they understand how it works. Before moving on to other types of activities, consider starting here:
1) Teach the threes
Double a number and then add one more group. For instance to calculate 3 x 6. We know 2 x 6 = 12, so we add one more group of 6 to 12 to arrive at 18.
2) Teach the fours
Since students already understand the 2x tables, we can use the same rule and encourage students to double the product of the 2x table to understand the 4s. For example, in order to calculate 4 x 6, we can think of 2 x 6 = 12, and then double this: 12 x 2 = 24. So, 4 x 6 = 24.
3) Teach the fives
All products in the 5x table end in 0 or 5. You can also help students learn the 5x by halving the products of the 10x tables. For example: To calculate 5 x 7, we first think of 10 groups of 7 (70). Half of this will be 35, which is 5 x 7.
4) Teach the nines
For 9 x any number up to 10, the first digit of the answer will always be one less than the number they are multiplying by 9: The answer to 9 x 4 starts with 3.
The second digit will be the remainder of 9 minus the first digit: 9 – 3 = 6. The answer is 36.
5) Teach 6, 7, 8, and 12
We can use the multiples of 5 and 10 to help us learn these harder numbers. For instance, in order to calculate 6 groups of 8, we can think about 5 groups of 8, which is 40. We can then add one more group of 8: 40 + 8 = 48.
Alternatively, we could start with 10 groups of 6 (60). Because we’re calculating 8 groups of 6, we’ll need to subtract 2 groups of 6 from 60: 60 – 6 – 6 = 48.
Use Multiplication in Daily Life
Another helpful way to introduce—and teach multiplication—is by incorporating it into daily life. This provides additional practice and helps a student see the practicality of the skill.
6) Count, then group, objects on a walk, such as animals, plants, or signs.
7) Ask your student to double or triple a cooking recipe.
8) Practice multiplication by measuring in different units and converting them to one another (teaspoons to tablespoons, inches to feet, etc)
9) Plant a garden and ask your student to calculate how many seeds to plant based on the amount of space.
10) Count and group items at the dinner table. How many pieces of broccoli do you see? How many forks?
11) Group supplies for an art project, like beads, pencils, or erasers.
12) Total the cost of ordering items from a menu.
13) At the store, ask the student to calculate buying certain objects in bulk such as juice boxes or sticks of butter.
14) If feeding a pet, ask the student to calculate how many cans of food or cups of dry food the animal needs over a few days or over a week.
15) When cleaning a space, ask the student to sort how many objects of a type they find. Ask them for factors of each total.
Hands-on Ways to Teach Multiplication – Visualization
If your student is a visual learner, consider teaching multiplication via these hands-on activities:
16) Drawing
Drawing the multiplication problem can help learners understand the logic and calculations more clearly. You can read the scenarios, draw together, or have your student draw them to calculate the answer.
17) Multiplication graph
Consider creating a large multiplication poster with the numbers on the X and Y axes and the products where the coordinates meet.
18) Make multiplication strategies posters
Write and draw corresponding pictures of the most helpful multiplication strategies or facts for your students.
19) 100-Chart Multiplication Patterns
Make multiple copies of a 100 chart for each student. Provide crayons or colored pencils, a pencil, and lined paper. Ask students to color in a certain number pattern. For example, you might ask them to color all the numbers that end in 5 or 0 or 8. Then after they have found these, they should write down all the multiplication facts that will result in these numbers as products. Ask them to look for patterns. Compare what each student has found.
20) Paint By Number
Give your students a paint-by-number coloring page and let them color. Periodically pause to ask students to calculate the product of the last 2 sections they colored.
Hands-on Ways to Teach Multiplication – Using Media
For the tech-savvy student, consider these resources for teaching multiplication.
21) Watch multiplication song videos on YouTube
22) Take online quizzes
23) Play multiplication games on a website or app
24) Create your own flashcards using a website or an app
Hands-on Ways to Teach Multiplication – Storytelling
For your student who loves a good story, try these ways to teach multiplication:
25) Develop a character and write a story with multiplication problems for the student to answer in order to hear the ending of the story. For example:
One day, ___ aliens arrived on Earth. They multiplied by ___ and played a basketball game. How many aliens are playing basketball now?
26) Animal Multiplication Stories
You can make stories featuring animals and their characteristics to help your students. For example, one story might be, “An octopus has eight legs. Six octopi came to an undersea birthday party. How many legs were there at the party? (8 x 6 = 48 legs).” Let students choose an animal or you can assign one. They can then write a short multiplication story about their animal, solve it, and illustrate it. The picture should match the problem. Consider using horses, cats, dogs, or spiders, and think creatively. For instance, you can count horses’ eyes, ears, legs, tails, and so on.
27) Write Your Own Story
For this multiplication teaching strategy, give students a lined piece of paper and a pencil, and have them fold it into four squares. Then write four multiplication facts on the board. Ask students to copy the facts at the top of each square. Explain that they should write a short story problem that fits each fact. For example, if I had to write about 5 x 5, I might write something like, “There were five brothers. Each one had five books. How many books did they have all together?” Urge students to be creative. Take turns sharing the scenarios aloud. Finally, on the back of the paper, have students choose four facts of their own and write stories about those.
Hands-on Ways to Teach Multiplication – Games
Want to make learning multiplication extra fun and exciting? Here are other creative ways to help teach your students multiplication.
28) Sticky dot multiplication game
Purchase a few sets of colorful sticky dots. On pieces of card stock or construction paper, arrange the sticky dots in layouts that model multiplication facts. For example, to show 3 x 4, make three rows with four dots in each row. Arrange the dots on one side and the multiplication fact written on the back. Once students have made a set of at least 12 cards, have them meet with a partner to play a game. The first player flashes a card with dots showing for two seconds. The second player must try to quickly guess the fact and answer. The lead player takes the card out and shows both sides to check the answer. Have students take turns flashing cards and working through the deck.
29) Human Body Multiplication
This game works great in a classroom. Practice multiplication by calling up three students to the front of the classroom. Ask questions for the whole class that focus on multiplying such as, “How many ears does this group have all together (3 x 2 = 6)?” “How many fingers does this group have all together? (3 x 10 = 30)?” “How many noses do they have all together (3 x 1 = 3)?” As you ask, have the rest of the class write the multiplication problem and the product on a whiteboard or paper and share their answers. Give all students a chance to come up and be part of the multiplying group. Change the number of students in the modeling group to change the resulting facts.
30) Clapping Facts
Tell your students you will clap a multiplication question. They should carefully listen to the number of claps, and write down the multiplication they hear. For example, for 2 x 7, you would clap like this:
Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap (pause)
Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap (stop)
For 3 x 3, it would sound like this:
Clap, clap, clap (pause)
Clap, clap, clap (pause)
And finally…
Clap, clap, clap (stop)
Ask students to share their answers. After you’ve done a few, have students take turns choosing leading the clapping. Write all the questions you’ve done on the board, so there won’t be any repeats.
31) Multiplying Card Game
Ask each student to write 0 to 10, with 1 digit per card. Have students make 5 sets. Ask students to partner up and place one deck between them. The lead player shuffles the deck, and then deals two cards to each player. Players will multiply their two cards and announce their individual products. Whoever has the highest product wins all four cards. The player with the most cards at the finish of the deck wins.
32) Multiplication Model Make-It
Provide each student with a group of small objects such as coins, beads, rocks, candies, or dried beans. Call out a multiplication fact and ask students to group their objects to model the fact. For example, if you call out 5 x 5, students will create five groups of five beans in each. After they complete this task, ask them to announce the product. Students can take turns leading this activity as well.
33) Multiplication Shake
Using an empty egg carton, ask your students to write a number from 0 to 11 with a permanent marker at the bottom of each space. Give each player two beans or beads. Players will put the beads in their cartons and close them tightly. When you say “go,” they’ll shake the carton and stop when you say so. They open the carton and multiply the two numbers where the beads landed. For more practice, ask questions like: “Who has the highest product?” or “Who has the lowest product?” or “Who has an odd or even product?”
34) Challenge Roll
Partner students up. Give each group a pair of dice, lined paper, and a pencil. They will fold the paper in half vertically and write their names at the top of the two columns. Have players take turns rolling the dice and recording the two numbers that come up as factors on the paper in their column. They then multiply these together and write the product. Whoever rolls the highest product in each round wins that round and circles their winning product. You can also play it with the lowest product as the winner.
Instead of dice, you can also use number cubes marked from 0 to 5 and 6 to 11. You can even convert dice to number cubes by putting white sticky dots on each side and writing the numbers you want on them.
35) Who Am I?
Partner students up and put a deck of cards with multiplication problems between them. Students take turns picking a card. Without looking at the card, they will hold it against their forehead so their partner can see the card. The partner tells the lead player the product for the problem. For example, if I pick a card that says “3 x 5,” my partner would say, “You’re 15.” Next, you’ll have to guess the factors on the card (“I’m 3 x 5”). The factors should be in the exact order (not “5 x 3”).
36) Twister Multiplication
For this, you’ll need supplies from the game Twister. Write a multiplication question on the left side of a sticky note and the product on the right side. Repeat with several sticky notes. Cut them in half. Place the product part of the sticky note on the Twister spinner dots. On the dots of the Twister mat, place the multiplication question cards. As you spin, each student will call out the product the spinner points to. Players on the mat will try to place a hand or foot on the question that corresponds to the product.
37) Multiplication Mix-Up
Take index cards and make a set of digit cards 0 to 9 with at least three of each card. Have students shuffle their cards and spread them out on their desks. Call out a product, like 12. Give students three minutes to find pairs of cards that if multiplied together would result in that product. With the product of 12, students should be able to show you the following pairs: 2 x 6, 6 x 2, 3 x 4, and 4 x 3. After a round, ask players to reshuffle and then announce the next product.
38) Tower of Facts
On each block of a Jenga set, write a multiplication question. Set up the tower. As players pull blocks from the tower, they must answer the multiplication fact on the block. If they are correct, they keep the block, and if they are wrong, all partners get a chance to answer. If all miss, the block gets stacked on top.
39) Name Tag Sort
Write multiplication problems on sticky name tags (one problem per tag). Give each student a tag and ask them to wear it. Begin to call out clues like “all odd products, all even products, both factors are odd, both factors are even, the product is more than 15, the product is less than 15,” and so on. If a student’s product matches the clue, they stand up. If not, they stay seated. Let students take turns leading this one.
40) Multiplication Cup Towers
This activity works well for a small group of three or four students. You’ll need a set of small plastic cups. On the side of each one, write a multiplication question. Put the stacked set of cups in the middle of the group. Have students take turns pulling a cup. If they answer the question correctly, they keep the cup and can begin to build a stacking tower. If they miss it, they put the cup back in the middle. Limit play by the number of times you can pull a cup (10 is a good start) or time (two minutes is reasonable).
41) Lots of Dots
Give each student a piece of lined notebook paper and a pencil. Tell them to draw dots that equal a product of a multiplication problem (such as 12 or 20). Then, ask them to use a marker to circle the dots in a way that will reveal a multiplication problem. For example, with 12, they might circle two groups of six or six groups of two or three groups of four, and so on. They then write the facts underneath the dots.
42) Domino Multiplication War
Partner up students and give each pair a set of dominoes. The dominoes should be placed in a box or bag so players can’t see them. Players take turns picking a domino out of the bag. The first player checks both sides of the domino and chooses the side that would yield the largest product when the two dot arrays are multiplied together. They put the domino face up in the middle. The next player picks a domino and does the same thing. The player with the largest product wins and keeps both dominoes. Play continues until the bag or box is empty. Then players count their dominoes to see who has the most. You can also play this one to try to get the lowest product.
43) Have a Ball Multiplying Hard Facts
Ask your class what the most difficult multiplication facts to remember are. Write these on the board. Brainstorm strategies to remember them together. Write these strategies next to the hard facts on the board. Then get a soccer ball and write these hard facts on the ball (or balls) with a permanent marker. Form a circle and toss the ball to a student. Whatever fact their right thumb lands on is the fact they should answer. Have them refer to the board and the strategies if they are unsure. Take turns tossing the ball around the circle, making sure everyone gets a turn.
44) Rock, Paper, Multiply!
Partner students and have them stand and face each other. On the count of three, each player presents a number of fingers on one hand. Both players look at the fingers, count them, and multiply those two numbers. The first with the correct answer is the winner. As players get more skilled, have them play with two hands each.
45) Multiplication Clue Cards
Give each student two blank index cards and two multiplication facts. Students should write the two factors down on one side of each card. On the other side, they should write at least three clues that will point other players to what the multiplication fact is. For example, if you give me the fact 3 x 3 = 9, I could write clues like: 1. “Both factors are the same.” 2. “The factors are less than 4.” 3. “The product is odd.” Students take turns reading their clues to the class, while classmates try to guess the fact.
46) Find That Fact!
Write about 20 multiplication products on the board. Two students will come to the board. Explain that you will call out a fact, and players must point to the product that matches your fact as quickly as possible. Whoever points to the fact first wins that round and stays at the board. Keep sending players up until everyone has a turn.
47) Multiplication War
Partner students up and give them a deck of playing cards. Then have the lead player deal out the complete deck face down to each player. Players each flip two of their own cards, multiply them, and say the product aloud. The player with the higher product wins that round and all the cards in the round. Play is complete when all cards have been dealt. Add up the cards to see who wins.
48) Addition and Multiplication Scramble
Write a repeated addition sentence on the board, like 5 + 5 + 5 + 5. Ask students to tell you the corresponding multiplication fact with its product. Make sentence strips for each additional sentence and put them in a pile. In another pile, put corresponding multiplication fact cards. Mix these together on the floor in a big pile. Pick a group of four or five students. When you say go, players have two minutes to unscramble and match every addition sentence with its partner multiplication sentence.
49) Multiplication Rhymes
Give each student a set of 10 facts, a lined paper or drawing paper, a pencil, and colored pencils or crayons. Ask students to create multiplication rhymes, beginning with one set. Provide these examples for the set of 3: 3 x 4 = open the door, 3 x 5 = bees in the hive, 3 x 6 = too many sticks, and so on. When completed, have students share their rhymes aloud with the class.
50) Multiplication Concentration
For this multiplication teaching strategy, give students a set of index cards and have them write assigned multiplication facts on each card. Now provide another set of index cards and have them write the corresponding products on each card. Have each player put out four matching card sets from their deck. Mix these together and then deal them out face down on a desk. Play a game of Concentration, with each player picking two cards, flipping them over, and seeing how many matches they can find. The most matches wins.
51) Spinner, Spinner, Multiplication Winner
Make a simple spinner by attaching a paperclip to the end of a pencil. Ask students to draw a circle. Tracing around a coffee-can lid is an easy way to do it. Divide the circle into 10 sections using a ruler. Color the sections and write numbers 0 to 9 on them. Place the paper clip and pencil down in the middle of the circle. Flick the paper clip, so it spins. Whatever number it points to is your first factor. Spin again to find the second factor. Multiply them, and that is your score for the round. Your partner does the same. The highest product wins that round. To make it more fun and motivating, put out a set of 20 marbles or beads. As a player wins a round, they get a cube or bead. Whoever has the most after all are taken is the winner.
52) Multiplication Mistakes
Create a paper where you write 100 multiplication facts with products. Make an error in at least half of them. Make a copy of the paper for each student. Pass these out and explain that this paper was recently handed into you by your friend. He is new to math and may have made some mistakes. Ask them to correct the paper by circling the mistakes and writing the correct number next to the error.
53) Room Arrangement Multiplication Hunt
Before students come into a room, take certain items and arrange them in groups around the room. For example, set up five stacks of books with four books in each stack, three piles of rulers with eight rulers in each pile, nine index cards with five paper clips on each, three chairs in a circle, and so on. When students enter, give them each a sheet lined paper on a clipboard and a pencil. Have them sit down and explain that certain items have been gathered in different parts of the room. Their job is to find, but not touch, the items. They should write a description of what they found along with a multiplication fact that matches each arrangement.
54) Number Line Hop
Partner students and provide them with a number line from 1 to 100, a couple of game pieces, and a deck of multiplication fact cards. Players take turns pulling cards from the deck. They solve the fact and move that number of spaces on the number line. The first player who reaches the end wins. Players have to pay careful attention as the game progresses because, with each round, they have a different starting point. For example, if your first card is 3 x 4, since the product is 12, you hop from 0 to 12. If your second card is 2 x 3, you now start on the 12, move 6 spaces, and land on 18. The game will help students practice addition along with multiplication. You can also play this same game on a 100 chart if a number line takes up too much space.
55) Party Planning
Explain to students they are planning a party for 5 people. They have a budget of 100 dollars and must calculate the cost of snacks. Give students prices of some items and ask them to calculate their total cost.
56) Multiplication City
Have students make cities using squares arranged in a multiplication question. Students can make and label skyscrapers that reflect multiples: 6 x 4, 3 x 9, or 12 x 1.
57) Kaboom Sticks
Get a set of wooden craft sticks and write multiplication facts on them, except for a few sticks on which you will write “Kaboom!” Put the sticks with the facts side down in a can. Students take turns pulling sticks from the can. If they solve the problem correctly, they keep the stick and grow their collection. If they get it wrong, they put it back in the can. And if they pull a “Kaboom” stick, they put their whole collection back in the can.
58) Connect Four
When playing Connect Four, pause the game to ask your student to calculate answers using the rows of pieces.
59) Making Jewelry
Give your students yarn and beads of various colors. Ask students to pick a pattern of beads (5 read, 3 green, 2 yellow, etc). Students will then calculate how many beads of each color to use for a few repetitions.
60) Use UNO
In a small group, choose a target number from 1 – 10. Each player flips one card and multiplies the number on the card by the target number. The player with the largest product takes all the cards.
Additional Resources
For more tips on how to teach multiplication or math, see:
