Printable Multiplication Tables {Essential Tips & Tricks!}

Help your kids to Learn the basic multiplication facts with these Free Printable Multiplication Tables. These tips and tricks are the perfect shortcut to help reduce the stress of remembering times tables facts x1 -x12!

Many kids find it hard to memorize all the multiplication fact x0 -x12. This is because there’s 169 of them to learn! But actually there really is just 27 facts that they need to memorize! So if you’re looking for an easy way to teach multiplication, especially to struggling students, read on!

Many math worksheets and activities tend to encourage kids to learn things they already know over and over. What they don’t do is focus on what they need to learn. So the kids tend to get the same times tables facts wrong repeatedly and end up being the kids “who don’t Know their tables!”

In this post I’ll explain how you can lessen the load of remembering times tables facts for your kids using printable multiplication tables. Also, take a look at the guide to teaching multiplication for tons more ideas, activities and tips for learning and teaching multiplication.

We’ve also created a free printable for you to use in your classroom. Make sure you scroll to the end of this post to get it! So let’s get started…

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How To Introduce Multiplication

There’s a lot of work to be done with pre multiplication skills before introducing multiplication facts. Students need to understand what multiplication is before diving into memorizing a bunch of facts they don’t get.

Start by extending what the kids know about addition and transition to multiplicative thinking by teaching repeated addition, groups of and arrays. We have covered this in lots of other posts, check them out the guide to teaching multiplication.

Once you have laid the foundation skills you’re all set to dive in with some fluency and recall.

Now before giving the kids a set of worksheets or activities I like to show the kids some nifty times tables tricks and shortcuts. These cool tricks really help to cut down the number of facts that they actually need to learn.

Printable Multiplication Tables Tricks

You may be wondering why your curriculum only states to recall 10 x 10 multiplication facts. It’s because of the metric system, so technically there’s no need to learn the eleven and twelve times tables any longer. But we have included them for just in case you want them. So let’s get started…

I use a 12 x 12 Printable Multiplication Table or times tables grid to demonstrate the facts. I have put all these models in a FREE Teaching Multiplication Resource for you at the end of the post.

Multiplication Investigation Grids

So the easiest fact, but one that the kids need to know is the o’s. Any number multiplied by zero = zero! This is known as the multiplication property of zero. What that means is if either of the numbers, multiplicand or multiplier, is zero the answer will also be be zero. So that’s 26 facts, including the 12 commutative facts, that you don’t need to memorize.

Next is the 1’s. Any number multiplied by 1 = the number. So that’s another 26 facts you don’t need to memorize! So far that’s 52 times table facts learnt using this printable multiplication Table!

The two times table facts are super easy and rarely cause a problem for kids. So that’s another 26 facts including the commutative facts, that they don’t need to spend time memorizing.

So far we’ve done the 0’s, 1’s and 2’s. If we also include the commutative facts in just 3 sets of tables, that’s a total of 78 multiplication facts done, with hardly any effort!

The next set of facts is the tens. There’s an obvious pattern in the tens times tables that makes these multiplication facts the Kids’ favourite to remember. That’s now 104 multiplication facts without even breaking into a sweat!

Then the 5 times tables facts. And we’re in luck, they too have an easy, predictable number pattern of 5’s & 0’s to follow.

Kids seem to be a fan of the 11’s. up to 10 x 11 of the eleven’s multiplication facts is easy because of the repeating number pattern and they have been covered in the commutative property, (e.g 11 XU2). But 11x 11 and 12 x 11 may need a little work. There is a pattern that makes them easy to memorize though!

So far that’s 120 fact done without any learning!

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Hardest Multiplication Facts To Learn

That leaves us 47 facts to learn and they are the hardest.

If we take off the remaining commutative facts we are left with just 27 tricky multiplication facts to learn.

These 27 multiplication facts are harder to remember and are the ones kids get wrong the most. They are the ones the kids should focus on after learning each fact family to make sure they commit them to memory.

Click the image Below To Download The Free Printable Multiplication Tables Resources