Multiplication Wheel Printable Activity
Simple multiplication and division are part of daily life. We use these math skills when shopping, cooking, leaving a tip, event planning, playing games, and many more ways. Basic math comes so naturally, we don’t really even think about it until it becomes difficult. These printable multiplication wheels are perfect for helping your kids get math down to a tee.
I went through a health crisis a few years back where I dealt with constant brain fog. Going to the grocery store was a challenging event, physically and mentally. I often took my oldest son, age thirteen at the time, with me to take care of the family shopping. Yes, I needed him there to do all the heavy lifting and packing, but I relied heavily on his brainpower, too, to help me find the best deals to keep us within budget while providing the necessities of life for our family of eight.
One time, I remember staring at packages of pretzels. Some pretzel brands were on sale and I couldn’t figure out if one of the sale prices was a better buy than the store brand we normally purchased. As soon as I called him over, he quickly did the per ounce division and grabbed the store brand and said, “It’s still cheaper, Mom, by eight cents an ounce.”
My son didn’t always take so naturally to multiplying and dividing. However, because of the persistence of some elementary math teachers who were determined all of their students memorize a multiplication table, he started to excel at math. After all, quickly recalling basic math facts is the basis of succeeding in future math classes.
Today in the classroom, it is less about memorizing math facts and more about understanding the relationships between numbers. My youngest daughter moves through math so much faster and with more confidence than my older kids did because she understands how numbers interrelate. She understands multiplying and dividing are just advanced ways to do addition and subtraction on a much larger scale.
Instead of using a times table, she knows how to use the differences in numbers to manipulate them faster in her head. She knows 12 times 8 is really 10 times 8 plus 2 times 8. Instead of memorizing all the math facts, she uses the relationships between the numbers to quickly reach the same solution.
To help your students better understand the relationship between numbers and to begin to memorize math facts, we have free downloadable printable multiplication wheels covering the math relationships for numbers 1-12.
Your students will begin to see the various relationships between the numbers 1-12 as they fill out the multiplication wheels. Once they have the basics relationships down, with our base 10 number system, all math they will use in the future will be easily chunked or broken up in their minds for easy manipulation.
Math is the Basis of Life
To live life to its fullest, a person needs to be able to readily add, subtract, multiply, and divide. By developing these skills in your students, you are setting them up for a productive and fulfilling life.
Future Finances
Being able to do things like balancing a checking account or understanding interest requires understanding simple math. Your students will be better able to make good decisions about business investments, home loans, car loans, credit cards, stock market investments, and more when they know their basic math facts.
Home Life
Gardening, landscaping, cooking, and home repairs all require simple math conversions, addition, subtraction, fractions, angles, volume, area, multiplication, and division.
Efficiency including a car’s fuel efficiency and the amount of gas it uses compared to the miles driven can be easily calculated with basic math facts. With simple math, your students can determine if purchasing a more fuel-efficient car is the better long-term choice.
Sports and Exercise
From keeping score to understanding nutritional information to build muscle and lose fat all require math. (I remember the first time I went bowling. If you are any good at bowling, keeping score requires intricate math.) Tracking time left in a game and the number of plays possible in that time all require math to excel at a given sport.
Counting calories eaten and burned, figuring maximum heart rate for conditioning, and exercise repetitions and sets all take math. Determining how to gain muscle while burning fat, reading and understanding nutrition labels, and even determining how much caffeine you’ve had today all take math.
Simple math is at the center of living a full and productive life. Help your students get started today on understanding the relationship between numbers with our free printable multiplication wheels. A little understanding gained by your students means a whole lot of great future living in the years ahead of them.
Article by Miss Jae
Printable by Miss Jenna
Sources:
Mager, Maria. “Example of How Math is Used in Everyday Activities.” Seattlepi. https://education.seattlepi.com/kind-math-should-learn-owning-own-business-2811.html