Understanding factors and multiples is an important part of number sense and helps with many math topics like fractions, prime factorization, and finding the greatest common factor.
What Are Factors?
Factors are numbers you can multiply together to get another number.
For example, the factors of 12 are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 12 because: 1×12, 2×6, and 3×4.
What Are Multiples?
Multiples are the result of multiplying a number by any whole number.
For example, the first few multiples of 5 are: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and so on.
Helpful Tips
Every number is a factor and a multiple of itself.
Factors are finite (they end), but multiples go on forever.