How Old Are Kids When They Learn Simple Multiplication?

2nd grade, with more intensive focus in 3rd.

ETA: What worked best for me personally was memorizing the multiplication table. Schools don't do that anymore, so it's a lot more challenging.

Usually 3rd grade.

I got a CD called "The Numbears Multiply" by Phil Snyder you can download from Itunes. I made a CD for the car and I played it every time we were on a car ride. My dd learned all her multiplication without even trying. It was the best thing I ever bought.

2nd grade. By 3rd should be proficient in tables.

In kindergarten my daughter learned to count on a grid with dots. It's the basis for multiplication.

I'll be honest I didn't understand it... but my brother is a math guy and works in engineering / math and flipped his sh*t he said it was so cool that they were teaching that way.

It's a system called "everyday math" and it was developed at University of Chicago. You can google it.

In first grade they taught them "fact families". So they cut paper into triangles and then put #s in each of the triangle.

2
4 6

So that is your fact family
4x2=6
2x4=6
6/4=2
6/2=4

Second grade here, they are 6-7 years old.

1st grade in my school, which is 6-7 year olds. They don't get to their tables until 3rd grade however.

My son is in 1st grade and is 6.
They do forms of multiplication. Grouping/adding etc. to learn it.
Not the multiplication tables itself. But the concept of it.

However, at home, we teach our kids other things.
My son knows his multiplication for up to 3's.

There is the rote memorization of it, which a kid can memorize through repetition. Then there is the understanding of it, by concept.
Schools, teach it both ways.
At least at my kids' school.
But multiplication itself, multiplication tables etc., is taught in 2nd grade.

Um..not third grade! Sorry!

They begin officially learning in kindergarten. Counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's is the precursor to simple multiplication. My 2 year old knows her 3's facts because of a Schoolhouse Rock song. ;)

In first grade, they work with a more structured method..you have three friends and you give them each 2 cookies, etc. That's multiplication.

In second grade they begin learning their facts by rote.

By third grade, they are expected to have them all memorized, including division as well.

Schoolhouse Rock does have a multiplication song for each number, and I have found these to be helpful. The nines facts you can do on your fingers..google the method..2's facts are just a number doubled, and 4's facts are a number doubled twice. If you can add well, these methods work well. 10's are easily memorized, it's easy to count by 3's..really, 5's through 8's just need to be memorized.

My daughter is in the 2nd grade in the Glendale Unified School District. They will be diving into multiplication next year (3rd grade). This is where they will be memorizing and being tested on multiplication and division by the end of the year. Although, they have already started learning the concept of multiplication.

My son was in kindergarten in a 3-6 Montessori program (he was 5 at the time). The kids used manipulatives to learn 'sets' of numbers up to 10 (as in 5 sets of 10 is 50). The kindergartners moved on to cubes of numbers up to 10 as well (1000). In public school first grade (excellent district also) they are counting by 2, 5 and 10. I have no idea why they don't count by all the numbers.

I would suggest looking online for the Montessori math materials if you are interested in teaching multiplication at home. The kids find it a lot of fun and see the real application of numbers (the cube of 10 is physically a cube with the dimensions of length, width and height all equal to 10) rather than just an abstract concept.

By K I was teaching my first to multiply by 10. Grouping things like Legos or marbles or anything really. 10 seemed to be a pretty easy concept.
10, 20, 30... He was really a whiz though. He found patterns in everything.

I was lucky. I grew up at a time where they had Schoolhouse Rock on Saturday mornings.

I bought my children the Schoolhouse Rock videos and have even bought them as presents for friend's kids.

You can find them on Amazon or e-Bay. They have really catchy tunes and learning tricks that really do stick with you.

I'll try to send a link for one.
Schoolhouse Rock covers history, multiplication, how laws are made, etc.

I personally find them to be really good learning tools, even if they are a bit older.

Oh heck. I can't copy paste. Just look up Multiplication Rock on Youtube.
They also have videos for Schoolhouse Rock.

Check it out.

Best wishes.

my daughter could do it at 3. we used it as distraction for when she was in line at the grocery store.

it was simple. I changed the words times as in 4 x 4 to 4 Four times or two two times and so on..it made more sense. once she got the concept we kept making it harder and then eventually J. said it properly.

ETA
i also made her think about tricks when she was 3. at first i;'d say 2 x 6 and she would do 2 six times..we talked about reversing the numbers so its easier

my daughter is 6 now in first grade and it helps that she understands the concepts form really young. they now do memorization of all of the numbers and their times tables. they have to do it speedy too. so if you say do your three times tables she would have to yell
3
6
9
12
and so on
which is essentially counting by the number and then after they are good with that then they can do the times tables in their head without pausing

My first grader can do some of the lower numbers, although it is not labeled as such. She has no idea she is multiplying.

I learned by memorizing the table to 12x12.

It totally depends on the school.

My sons preschool (Montessori) taught multiplication & division... So 3/4/5 depending on the kid.

His next school didn't until 5th grade.
(Then we homeschooled)
His current school does in 3rd grade.

____________

To jump ahead a bit...

Most schools teach algebra in middle school.
Many teach algebra in 5th
Some teach algebra in 3rd/4th

If memory serves me correctly - I believe they learned multiplication in 2nd grade. There is the multiplication of 9's that you can show them using their hands.

When my kids were young, the school began teaching multiplication towards the end of second grade. Both of my kids, however, were advanced in math (probably because we started playing math and number sense games from toddlerhood -- my son figured out addition at about 2.5 yrs). Since they were facile with addition and subtraction by the middle of first grade, I taught them multiplication myself.

Multiplication is really sequential addition. I don't believe in rote memorization -- I always insist that my kids understand the concepts behind everything. By the time they get to geometry and especially calculus, this is essential. So, when teaching them multiplication, I started with the concept of 2 + 2 is the same as 2 sets of 2, or 2 X 2. 2 + 2 + 2 = 3 sets of 2, or 3 x 2, and so on. I also taught them to create factor trees. Once they understood the concept of multiplication we drilled for memorization, just so they would learn to multiply with speed. We also worked a lot with mental math skills (you can get books on this at the library or at educational book stores). Because he understood the concepts and practiced mental math with me daily, by the time he was 8 my son could figure out sales tax in fractional decimals (e.g., 8.5%) in his head, and by 10 my DH taught him how to count and add in hexidecimal (base 16, used for computer programming) "for fun" using legos. I started teach my daughter parametric and nonparametic statistics in 7th grade for the purposes of analyzing her science fair projects (she ended up winning two national statistics awards by 9th grade). Both kids got 5's in AP Calculus. None of that would have been possible if they had only learned math by memorization and didn't understand the underlying concepts.

Kids start in K learning some concepts about multiplication (counting by 2's, by 5's by 10's, etc) They also use hands-on activities.However, multiplication facts are usually taught in second or third grade depending on the school.
My son learned easily from multiplication tables (there are different multiplication tables) ; it is important to set aside a few minutes every day to learn ONE table at a time.
I agree with CAWriterMom. My kids and myself learned multiplication by memorizing the tables:
2x1=2
2x2=4
2x3=6
2x4=8 and so on.......the same with every single table until 12.

2nd grade

Memorization/rote

official multiplication - as in asking facts and child answering - my 1st grader learned that around Christmas this year.

My kindergartener can count by 2's, 3's, 5's, 10's etc. He can draw pictures to solve multiplication problems, but he doesn't yet know straight facts.

My son is in 3rd grade and they started learning multiplication first thing this year. So, 8 years old. They start off simple but quickly get into larger numbers. They teach it kind of different nowadays. When I was a kid you had to do your multiplication tables over and over and over..so many times you pretty much memorized things. Now they don't do this so much. Besides his regular homework, we ended up giving our son extra multiplication work at home so he would spend more time doing it.

Officially calling it 2x2? At least 3rd grade if not 2nd grade. Anything before that and it's just a precursor to understanding it. Children can understand the concept of adding the same thing over and over again once they learn addition in Kinder but by standards when the teacher officially calls it mulitplication I don't think they start until 2nd or 3rd unless the teacher wants to have some fun.

In kinder I noticed my child learning Algebra. They don't call it that until about 5th, 6th grade but it's algebra nonetheless since they are trying to find an unknown variable.