Practise Your 9 Times Table

This activity is about multiplying by 9.

There are lots of patterns and tricks for the 9 times table.

Let's look at the nine times table below:

Pattern 1:
From 2 × 9 onwards, the tens digit counts up and the ones digit counts down. For 12 × 9 we have 10 tens, which is 100.

Pattern 2:
Each product of the nine times table has an eventual digit sum of 9. This means that we can check if our answer is likely to be correct. 

For example:

9 × 9 = 81 and 8 + 1 = 9

11 × 9 = 99 and 9 + 9 = 18 then 1 + 8 = 9.

Pattern 3: 
An easy way to multiply by 9 is to multiply by 10 and then count back one lot.

For example: 5 × 9

Step 1: 5 × 10 = 50

Step 2: 50 - 5 = 45

5 × 9 = 45

Let's try an example question together!

Example

A cookie has 9 chocolate chips. 

How many chocolate chips do 6 cookies have?

What is 9 times 6?

Answer

Using our pattern, we know that nine lots of six is fifty-four.

9 × 6 = 54

Now try the questions for yourself.