The good news about the 2 times table (or x2 multiplication facts) is that your students most likely already know them.  Probably they know them in two ways - as doubles and through skip counting.  Tapping prior knowledge is a great way to make new learning easier.  

Teach the 2 Times Table Using Doubling

With that in mind, your challenge here as a teacher is simply to guide your students to see that doubles such as 8 + 8 can be interpreted as 2 groups of eight (2x8).  If your students know 7 + 7, they should soon see that that means they also know 2 x 7, 2 groups of seven.

7 x 2 can be thought of 7 twos, or the seventh step when skip counting by 2.  

At MathFactLab, we begin our multiplication/division program with x2, harnessing student prior knowledge of doubles.  As you can see from the below images, we use both dice and ten frames to represent the doubles model. 

 

Skip counting can be seen on our two number line models.  

 

We teach division along with multiplication in order to help students to think in terms of fact families.  With that in mind, we use three different division models to teach x2 division facts: area models, number lines and bar diagrams.

 

 

The 2 times table, the typical first step in the process of learning the basic multiplication facts, turns out to be pretty simple!  With this success behind them, students will be more than ready to begin the x10 facts.  

Note: All MathFactLab models can be easily displayed for whole-class instruction.

Just select the 'Teaching Tools' tab on the teacher dashboard.  This way, you can - with the click of a button - display any of our strategies for both whole-class or small-group instruction.   Of course, your students will have a chance to work through all of our strategies as they progress through the program.  Enjoy.  

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This blog post was written by Mike Kenny, fifth-grade math teacher and creator of MathFactLab.