Making Friends with Numbers, Creative practice sheets for multiplication facts is written both for children just beginning to learn multiplication facts and for older students who, at any stage of their studies, need to review those facts. 

Making Friends with Numbers teaches and strengthens knowledge of multiplication facts by establishing a strong layer of connections. For instance, with the appropriate patterns, the 9 times facts are among the easier ones to learn. Such connections can be used as props by the mind while students acquire familiarity; they can later help students remember the fact or check and confirm the promptings of memory. These connections are not offered as a substitute for other approaches but as an integral part of the rich network that represents knowledge. In fact, even students who already know multiplication facts quite well are likely to benefit from the practice and perspectives provided here.

Along with building familiarity with the facts, these worksheets aim to develop number-sense, conceptual understanding, and valuable mental patterns. For instance, at least as important as knowing 7 x 9 = 63 is the ability to 'see' factors 7 and 9 when we look at 63. We stress that approach by introducing the notion of 'factor pairs' (7 and 9 are a factor pair of 63) and by providing activities that strengthen and then build on that understanding. Factor Chain practice sheets, as shown on the cover of the book, combine the notion of factor pairs and common factors and are often a favorite of students. They also prepare for more advanced applications such as simplifying fractions or finding Greatest Common Factor and Least Common Multiple. 

ISBN 978-0-916785-22-2

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The 100+ worksheets are sold as a student workbook, not as a collection of duplicating masters. 

Edric Cane has taught in Europe, in Africa, and at Oberlin College (Ohio) and Occidental College (Los Angeles). He taught math in a 95 percent minority school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. He has a PhD from the University of Michigan and spent two years as a Besse Scholar at Saint Antony's College (Oxford University, England). He now lives near Sacramento, California. 

ISBN 978-1-4575-1865-2

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