Arithmetic Grade Four

Lesson Thirteen: Multiplication Review

We can solve little word story problems for multiplication. Think about this problem: 

   There were four lines of children. There were six children
   in each line. How many children were there in all?
We could represent this story problem with a picture like this:

We could actually draw pictures of children if we wanted to take a lot of time, but its easier just to draw little squares. We have four columns of squares with six squares in each row. Counting up the squares we get a total of 24 squares (with each square representing a single child).

We could also write the following number sentence for the story problem: 
 
    4 x 6 = 24

Here's another word story problem for you to think about: 


   There were four plates with donuts on them.
   There were eight donuts on each plate. 
   How many donuts were there in all?
We could make a picture like this to represent this story problem:

We draw four rows of squares with eight squares in each row. The four rows represent the plates. That makes a total of 32 donuts in all.

We could also write the following number sentence for the story problem: 
 
    4 x 8 = 32

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