Agreed. Few children are going to get to the point where the commutative property is a concern, anyway. If we're going to be pedantic, use this as a learning o

Agreed. Few children are going to get to the point where the commutative property is a concern, anyway. If we're going to be pedantic, use this as a learning opportunity. "Actually, 5x3 is slightly different than 3x5. Multiplication has this property..." Some of the kids won't care, but some will be intrigued. Teaching it this way is a gotcha.