
Use the form below, click 'Go!', and then print out the results.

Now anyone who wants can make and print as many worksheets as they like for multiplying and dividing numbers by powers of ten. So, instead of making one worksheet for my son, I made a worksheet generator. My wife asked me to prepare some power of 10 multiplying and dividing practice questions, and I thought - I'm not going to be the only parent who wants a worksheet like that.

Hopefully, this new rule will set him straight. Or, to divide by 1000, he'd shift the decimal point three places to the left, so : So, to multiply 19.47 by 1000, he'll now shift the decimal place three spaces across, writing in any invisible zeroes he needs. This rule is just as simple as the earlier one (once you know what a decimal point is), but it works for all kinds of numbers. To multiply or divide by a power of 10, you shift the decimal point 00000019.47 000000., say - and even a number like 3 has the same, as well as an invisible decimal place, making it. I taught him to imagine, instead, that a number like 19.47 has an invisible infinite string of zeroes before and after - as if it were. However, the rule fails you when you need to multiply decimals - add a zero onto the end of 19.47 and you get 19.470, not the right answer at all. To multiply these by zero, you really do add a zero on the end - getting 30, 10. When multiplying by a power of ten, move the decimal point to the right by as many places as there are 0s in the power of 10. Now, that works fine for numbers like 3, 12 or 1739. To multiply by 10, you add a zero at the end In grade 1 or 2, he would have picked up the rule : When I sat down with him, I discovered the cause - he was using an outdated method. My son had trouble multiplying and dividing by ten, a hundred, a thousand, and so forth.
