You're trying to solve 51 x 52 = ?

You can break it up into pieces, which it seems like you're trying to do.

51 = 50 + 1 and 52 = 50 + 2

So now you have (50 + 1) x (50 + 2)

There is the distributive property of multiplication, which says that you can "split" the multiplication of a sum into the sum of the products. In other words:

3 x 7
3 x (2 + 5)
(3 x 2) + (3 x 5)
6 + 15 = 21

So you can do the same thing here by distributing each term in the equation (50 + 1) x (50 + 2), using FOIL:

First term of each: 50 x 50

Outside terms: 50 x 2

Inside terms: 1 x 50

Last terms of each: 1 x 2

Now you have (50 x 50) + (50 x 2) + (1 x 50) + (1 x 2). Do the individual multiplications, and you get 2500 + 100 + 50 + 2 = 2652