You may have already noticed how important it is for us to know the decorated multiplication tables! We always need it during math classes, and even outside of school it's good that it's well memorized. But the process of memorizing is not that easy, some people have a hard time recording all the multiplications. So let's see an idea to have the multiplication table of nine at the tip of the tongue, or rather, at the fingertips!
To get started, open both your hands, stretching your fingers out wide. Now each of your finger will represent a number in the following order:
Ordering fingers to calculate 9 times tables
You must choose a number between 1 and 10 to see the result of your multiplication by 9. For example, let's see how much is 9 x 5. To get the result, you must bend the finger indicated by the number 5, as in the figure below:
Multiplying 5 x 9 using just your fingers
The fingers to the right of the bent finger represent the dozen of your answer, and the fingers to the left of the bent finger represent the result units. In this case, we have four fingers to the right of the bent finger, which indicates 40, and five fingers on the left, which indicates 5 units. Putting the 40 and the 5 together, we get the result 45. Therefore, 9 x 5 = 45.
Let's see the result of 6 x 9? Open your hands again, and now you should bend the 6th finger. Let's see what your hands will look like:
Multiplying 6 x 9 using just your fingers
In this case, there are 5 fingers to the right of the bent finger, which represents 50; and there are still 4 fingers to the left of that finger, which indicates the 4. We know that 50 + 4 = 54, so 6 x 9 = 54.
Using this rule, we can find the results of multiplications from 9 x 1 to 9 x 10. Try calculating the multiplications of nine using your fingers and never forget the nine times tables!
By Amanda Gonçalves
Graduated in Mathematics
