Repeated addition and multiplication

Example 1

Take a look at these doughnuts, when you see this image what do you see?

Two groups of 5 doughnuts.

We can see two calculations here.

An addition and a multiplication which means two groups of 5 is equal to 10.

5 + 5 = 10

and

2 x 5 = 10

You can rearrange objects to form both multiplication and repeated addition number sentences, and there is more than one way to represent and work out the same calculation.

Now the doughnuts have been arranged in a different way.

What calculations do you see here?

5 rows of 2 doughnuts

The two calculations here are a repeated addition of

2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 10

and a multiplication of

5 x 2 = 10

This means 5 groups of 2.

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Example 2

Here are 14 flowers, have a look at the slideshow to see how we can arrange them into multiplication and repeated addition sentences.

Image gallerySkip image gallerySlide 1 of 5, 14 flowers arranged into 4+4+4+2, These 14 flowers have been arranged into 4+4+4+2. Is this a multiplication calculation?
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Activity

Try and solve the calculations in this quiz!

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More on Multiplying and dividing

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