Having been teaching programming I can see an immediate problem with it, whilst it works great as a starter tying it too hard in the mind will require more un-doing when it comes to more advanced concepts where it isn't an appropriate level.
On the other hand knowing the relation is a good hint at how to explain exponentiation.
In the end teachers should be aware of what will be needed at higher grades to use tools such as it as a starting point but not ingrain it too much and try to push students onto thinking of multiplication as it's own functional primitive once they get the hang of basic tables and start moving on to long multiplication.
On the other hand knowing the relation is a good hint at how to explain exponentiation.
In the end teachers should be aware of what will be needed at higher grades to use tools such as it as a starting point but not ingrain it too much and try to push students onto thinking of multiplication as it's own functional primitive once they get the hang of basic tables and start moving on to long multiplication.