This is a great way of multiplying any two numbers between 6 and 10.

This method is known as "Indian Multiplication"

First you need to imagine your fingers on each hand are numbered like this:

Now suppose you want to multiply 8 x 9, you touch together the 8 finger from one hand and the 9 finger of the other hand.

You work out the "tens" and "units" separately:

• To get the "tens" you count up the fingers that are touching and all the fingers underneath. Here you'll see there are 7 fingers that count altogether, so that gives us 7 tens or 70.
• To get the "units" you look at the fingers on each hand above the two touching fingers, and multiply these numbers together. Here you'll see 2 fingers on one hand and one finger on the other, so you get 2x1=2 units
• That gives us a final answer of 70 +2 =72.

It works! Because 8x9 DOES make 72!

Let's try 7x6

• To get the "tens" we see there are 3 fingers that count altogether, so that gives us 30.
• To get the "units" we see there are 3 fingers on one hand that count and 4 fingers on the other. We get 3x4=12 units
• Our answer is 30 +12 =42.

Check it - and you'll find that 7x6 DOES make 42!

Try this out with other numbers on the tables. It's brilliant!