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5th grade · Math · Unit 7 of 15

Mental Math Tricks

Facts to 81 and clever shortcuts

What your child practices

Recalling multiplication and division facts to 9 × 9, and mental strategies such as adding zeros, halving and doubling, and breaking a number into friendly parts.

Alabama Course of Study content standard: 5.3; 5.6 · mental multiplication strategies and patterns when multiplying by powers of 10

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Use facts you know to find ones you do not: 6 × 8 is double 3 × 8.
  2. Break a number apart: 7 × 12 = 7 × 10 + 7 × 2.
  3. Doubling and halving can make a product easier.

Example: Use a trick: 9 × 7 = ? 9 × 7 is 10 × 7 minus one 7. 70 − 7 = 63. Answer: 63

Mental Math Tricks in Alabama

In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 7 of 15 in 5th grade Math, after Patterns & Equations and before Parallel Lines and Quadrilaterals.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    12 × 5 = ?

    • 72
    • 50
    • 60

  2. Question 2

    20 × 15 = ?

    • 30
    • 300
    • 3,000

  3. Question 3

    81 ÷ 9 = ?

    • 9
    • 7
    • 8

  4. Question 4

    7 × 7 = ?

    • 42
    • 56
    • 49

  5. Question 5

    3 × 6 = 18. What is 300 × 6?

    • 1,800
    • 18,000
    • 180

  6. Question 6

    3,600 ÷ 9 = ?

    • 4,000
    • 40
    • 400

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