5 MULTIPLICATIVE PROBLEMS FOR CHILDREN - MATHS - 2025

The multiplicative problems are taught to children in elementary school, after learning the operations of addition and subtraction, also called addition and subtraction.

It is important to teach children that the multiplication of whole numbers is really an addition, but it is essential to learn to multiply to do these additions more quickly and easily.

It is essential to choose well the first problems that will be used to teach children to multiply, as they must be problems that they can understand and can see the usefulness of learning to multiply.

It is not enough to simply teach them the multiplication tables mechanically, it is much more attractive to show them their use through situations that arise in everyday life, such as when their parents go shopping.

Multiplicative Problems

There are a large number of problems that can be used to teach a child to apply multiplication tables, below are some problems with their solutions.

1- How much books are there to order?

A librarian has to sort the books on the library shelves. At the end of Friday afternoon, the librarian realizes that he still needs to order 78 boxes of books, which have 5 books each. How many books will the librarian have to order next week?

Solution: In this problem, it should be noted that all the boxes have the same number of books. Therefore, 1 box represents 5 books, 2 boxes represent 5 + 5 = 10 books, 3 boxes represent 5 + 5 + 5 = 15 books. But doing all these additions is a very extensive process.

Carrying out all the above sums is equivalent to multiplying the number of books in each box by the number of boxes remaining to order. That is, 5 × 78, therefore the librarian still needs to order 390 books.

2- How many boxes do you need?

A farmer needs to pack the coffee obtained in his last harvest in boxes. The total harvest is 20,000 kilos and the boxes in which you are going to pack them have a maximum capacity of 100 kilos. How many boxes does the farmer need to pack the entire harvest?

Solution: The first thing to notice is that all boxes have the same capacity (100 kilos). So if the farmer uses 2 boxes then he can pack only 100 + 100 = 200 kilos. If you use 4 boxes then you will pack 200 + 200 = 400 kilos.

As before, doing all this amount of addition is a very long process. The key is to find a number that multiplied by 100 results in 20,000.

Investigating in detail it can be seen that this number is 200, since 200 × 100 = 20,000.

Therefore, the farmer needs 200 boxes to pack the entire harvest.

3- How many windows are there?

Maria just moved into a building and would like to know how many windows the building has on the front. The building has 13 floors and on each floor there are 3 windows.

Solution: In this problem you can count the number of windows floor by floor and add them together to get the answer.

But, since each floor has the same number of windows, it is much faster to multiply the number of floors by the number of windows on each floor. That is, 13 × 3, therefore the building has 39 windows.

4- How many tiles do you need?

Javier is a bricklayer who is building a bathroom floor. So far Javier has placed 9 tiles (squares) on the bathroom floor as shown in the figure below. How many tiles does it take to cover the entire bathroom floor?

Solution: One way to solve this problem is to finish filling in the shape by drawing the missing tiles and then counting them.

But, according to the picture, the bathroom floor can fit 5 tiles horizontally and 4 vertically. Therefore, the entire bathroom floor will have a total of 5 × 4 = 20 tiles.

5- What is the total number of days?

The months January, March, May, July, August, October and December have 31 days each. What is the total number of days that all these months add up to?

Solution: in this exercise, data is given explicitly, which is the number of days (31). The second data is given implicitly in months (7). Therefore, the total days between all these months is 7 × 31 = 217.

References

1. Aristotle, P. (2014). 150 Mathematics Problems for the Primary Room (Volume 1). Aristotle Project.
2. Aristotle, P. (2014). 150 Mathematics Problems for Fifth Grade Primary (Volume 1). Aristotle Project.
3. Broitman, C. (1999). Operations in the first cycle: contributions for work in the classroom (reprint ed.). Noveduc Books.
4. Coffland, J., & Cuevas, G. (1992). Primary Problem Solving in Math: 101 Activities. Good Year Books.
5. Nunes, T., & Bryant, P. (2003). Mathematics and its application: The child's perspective. XXI century.
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7. Rodríguez, JM (2003). Learning and playing: educational activities using the Prismaker System (illustrated ed.) Playful-didactic material. (U. d.-L. Mancha, Ed.) Univ de Castilla La Mancha.
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