Have you ever seen someone do the multiplication table for nine on two hands? It was a cool little trick we were all obsessed with in the third grade and I’ve never forgotten it. I showed it to Hudson over the weekend and it blew his mind, so I thought I’d share it here as we all ease into the week.
Something to wow your kids with over dinner tonight…
First, think of your finders as representing digits or number places. So if this hand were a number, it would be a one and a three: thirteen. (Not four.) The down finger separates the two number places.
In this little video…
Nine times one? Put your pinky down and the answer is what’s left: nine.
Nine times two? Put your ring finger down and the answer is what’s left: one and eight, or 18.
Nine times three? Put your third finger down and the answer is two and seven, or 27. And so on…
Do you have any other math tricks up your, ahem, sleeve?
P.S. Something else cool about multiplying by nine? The numerals count up and down in reverse: zero to nine on the left, and nine to zero on the right. Also, this is nuts.
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