When we consider the different place values in a number, we can break it apart into numbers we are comfortable working with: tidy numbers.
Look at the beans in the picture. When you look at the pile, can you quickly count how many beans there are?
Thumbs up if this was challenging for you. What if I put tens in one cup, and then placed the ones in a smaller pile. How many beans do you see now?
Look at the beans in the picture. When you look at the pile, can you quickly count how many beans there are?
Thumbs up if this was challenging for you. What if I put tens in one cup, and then placed the ones in a smaller pile. How many beans do you see now?
This strategy can be applied to multiplication when we multiply numbers one place value at a time. Instead of thinking about 5 piles of 13 beans, we can imagine 5 cups of 10 beans (50 beans), and 5 piles of 3 beans (15 beans). Adding these two values together may be simpler and may be the strategy you choose in some multiplication problems.