Mr. R.’s World of Math

Multiply By Hen

the hen's trick


When I was quite little,
My big sister, Jen,
Tried teaching me multiplication by 10… 
But I’d get them all wrong, again and again,
I could not multiply numbers with pencil or pen…
I tried and I tried, I was feeling so blue,
Frustration set in, what should I do?

My grandpa then told me,
Old hen can assist,
It might sound a bit strange, but you shouldn’t resist!
I laughed really loud, Grandpa’s fun tricks!
How can hen solve my math problems like this?

Give hen a try, you might get surprised,
Said grandpa with twinkles in both of his eyes…
So I took my math over, straight out to hen’s pen,
Looked at her clucking and eating again,
This was really so silly, birds like our hen,
Don’t know any math! Can’t times things by ten!

I wrote down a problem,
It was 10 x  a 5,
Now let’s see if our hen’s the smartest chicken alive!
Can our hen solve it?
Let’s wait and let’s see,
Can hens do my math?
Nope, it just couldn’t be!

Hen grabbed my math paper,
Hen grabbed my math pad,
Wrote down a 5 and looked really glad,
Hen turned right around, and an egg was then laid,
Right after the 5,
What number was made?
This was real sweet, this was real nifty,
When I looked at the number, it was certainly 50…

5

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