Multiplication Metaphors 1

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There are 5 metaphors for Multiplication as illustrated below.

Join Several Equal Quantities – also called Repeated Addition

It is a common life experience to see an item arranged in groups of equal number. In such situations, multiplication is the short cut (by using multiplication facts) to find the number of items.

If in a market, fruits are arranged in collections of 6 and there are 8 such collections, the multiplication fact 6X8 gives the total number of fruits.

Repeated Addition needs to be qualified as Repeated Addition of Equal Quantities. I also feel that &ldquo;join several equal quantities&rdquo; is a better name for the idea since &ldquo;repeated addition&rdquo; is just a process.

Calling a multiplication situation as "groups of equal groups" is a better visualisation of the metaphor.

There are 2 visualisations of 6 X 8. Apart from the above, it can also be visualised as 6 collections of 8 fruits each.

Array

It is again a common life experience to see things arranged in an array. Examples are seats in an auditorium or formations for PT in school.

If an array has 6 rows and 8 columns (or 6 rows of s things in each row), the multiplication fact 6 X 8 gives the total number of things in that array.

An array is a concrete example of why 6 X 8 is the same as 8 X 6. In both cases, we are seeing the same array but from different perspectives. The perspective does not affect the total members in the array.

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