Begin with teaching basic multiplication, using only numbers. Start with basic concepts of multiplication, including multiplication tables. Next, give the students some simple questions involving multiplication. Here, using physical objects can help students grasp these concepts and introduce simple word problems. For example, you might introduce the problem 2 x 2 by saying, "If two students each have two apples, we would multiply 2 by 2 to find a total of 4 apples."
The most basic multiplication word problem should have two numbers that need to be multiplied. For example, you can use a problem like "If three dogs each eat five pounds of food a week, how many pounds of food would feed them for a week?" Explain to students that to solve the problem, they should extract the numbers and multiply them together. In this case, the numbers in the problem are 3 and 5, so multiplying them produces the answer 15.
To make multiplication word problems more complex, you can introduce more numbers. In a problem like, "Two people walk three miles every day. How many miles do they walk in a week?" the students have to work harder to locate the numbers, since they have to take the two given numbers (2 and 3) and multiply them by 7, which is only implied by saying "a week," to arrive at the answer, 42 miles.
Finally, you can use complex problems to challenge students. A complex problem might have two separate answers that need to be calculated and compared. For example, a complex question involving multiplication might be, "Mary works six hours a day on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and Tom works four hours a day on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Who works more hours per week?" In this problem, students must complete two multiplication problems and compare the answers.