Multiplying with your fingers

1. Label the fingers on each hand as shown above.

2. Keeping your hands flat, join the tips of the two fingers whose numbers are to be multiplied. For
example, the hands below are positioned for 8 x 7:

3. To find the ‘tens’ you simply count up the two touching fingers, and all fingers that are closest to you
(called ‘nearside’ fingers). In our example of 8 x 7, there are two touching fingers and three nearside
fingers. This means there is a 5 in the tens column.

4. To find the ‘units’ you need to multiply the remaining fingers on each hand (called ‘far’ fingers). In our
example, there are two fingers far fingers on one hand and three far fingers on the other. This means
there is a 6 is the units column (2 x 3).

5. Combining the tens and units columns, we get the answer: 56. Watch out for 6 x 6 and 6 x 7, as you
will find you have to carry 1 from the units column.

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