📊🤔 Explore A - Lesson 3.2 Multiplication as Equal Groups

For Cindy's Birthday, she made a favor bucket for each of her 5 guests. She put 3 cans of Play-Doh in each bag. How many stickers did she need to fill the bags?

What is the addition equation for this problem?

$3+3+3+3+3=15$

This problem shows 5 groups of 3. 

There are five groups:  the five bags.

There are 3 is a group:  3 stickers in each bag.

We can record this statement using the multiplication symbol $\times$ instead of the words "groups of".

Look at the equation.

$7+4+2+5=18$

Is it possible to write the equation as a multiplication equation?

No.  There must be repeated addition.  All addends (or the number is each group) needs to be the same in order to use multiplication.