We started out the school year with the grand idea of learning a table a week for 12 weeks. I would recite one table per week with him every night before bed, then on Sundays we’d review all the “learned” tables with flash cards. It was okay until we got up to the fives, but on review night it was obvious he’d forgotten a lot of the threes and fours. At this point, I’m down to asking for answers to just a few problems (the same ones over and over) with only limited success. There’s been no progress this week and we have a long way to go!
In primary school, we had pads made up of sets of 100 questions. We had a minute to do as many as we could, then we had to plot our speed and accuracy on a graph so we learned mental maths and graphing at the same time. I found it tedious but effective, and it only takes a minute a day.
… also, multiplying numbers in your head isn’t very exciting. If you’re just learning to multiply, it will be hard but not the good kind of hard. If you plan to do it for more than a few minutes a day, you might want to split it into sessions or you might find his interest dropping very fast.
We loved Wrap-ups for math practice. They’re simple, fun (no, really!) and fit in my purse to be brought out in the car or at a restaurant table waiting for food or waiting in line at the grocery store, etc. Best of all, he can check his own answers, so you can get done what you need to get done. Great drilling tool.
I found multiplication tables made a lot of what seemed like unconnected arithmetic fall into place for me. Plus, because it’s a pattern it’s easier to remember.
How about a computer game for learning multiplication tables? There are many available for free online but Target sells a higher quality selection for a price. I use computer learning games for my 3 year old and she can’t get enough of them. Besides whatever skill they teach in the game, she learns typing and computer literacy.
Back when I was in school, it was unfashionable to teach kids their tables ‘parrot fashion’, so they just taught us long multiplication and (I suppose) hoped we’d just learn how to multiply single digits by osmosis or something. It didn’t work and to this day, I hesitate with some simple multiplications (mostly the top end of the 7x table). I just wish they’d made me recite it.
My daughter is currently being taught her tables in a similarly slipshod fashion; most of the maths curriculum at her school is quite good, but for ‘times tables’, she’s merely being taught the answers - she knows that the results of the 6 times table are 6,12,18,24,30,36,42,48,54,60 - but ask her to tell you what’s seven times six and she’s stuck. I’m remedying this by reciting them with her in full.
Practice, lots and lots of practice, is the best way
I think it depends on how your son learns. Is he a hands-on learner who learns by physically manipulating things? Is he a verbal learner, who learns best by hearing something? Is he a visual learner, who learns best by reading/writing? All the flash cards in the world aren’t going to work if your son learns by physical manipulation, or learns by signing or hearing something. Figure out how your son learns, and I’d bet you’ll come across a dozen ways to help him. (And this counts not only for multiplication tables, but in other areas as well.)
:smack:
It actually took posting this thread to remember I hadn’t tried the library yet! I turn to them to solve so many other things…Anyway, thanks in large part to Shagnasty, I did look there and I have some books and software coming that should help.
I’ll second Hello Again: ABC’s schoolhouse Rock series is great. I can still sing my multiplication tables (One of my wife’s teachers asked the class if anyone knew the preamble to the U.S. Constitution; about five of them sang it.)
It also helped me that a friend’s mom had put a poster of the multiplication tables to ten on their living room wall. One glance, and I knew that multiplication is an orderly thing.
When I entered fifth grade my math teacher, on the very first day, told us to get out a sheet of paper and write the answers only to our 2s through our 12s times tables. We got five minutes to complete it. The first person to finish with all correct answers got 5 bucks. Second place got a dollar. I became 5 dollars richer that day and usually won the prizes over the next two months. Even though I knew the tables I learned a lot about them doing this.
I learned the concept that 3x3 = 3x2. The answers to the 12 times table are at the end of the other columns. (we wrote them in columns) I leanred that the 9 times table is really cool because the answers add up to 9. 9x2 = 18 1 + 8 = 9 2+7=9 and that the answers from 6 up mirror the ones from 5 down. 45 54 36 63 27 72 18 81
I learned the patters of the table and the reliabilty of math.
Along the same lines, but more modern and from Canada, as the “Schoolhouse Rock” is the googol power series. They have 16 videos/songs online for free(registration required) and more available to purchase. My kids like them.
I did offer to pay him for the ones he learned over the summer ($5 for the hard ones, $2.50 for the easy ones) and after making $2.50 for the one times table, he never learned any more.
I offered a similar deal to my daughter for reading, putting different amounts of money on books of my choosing, and never paid out a dime. Damned kids!
Bah. It’s easy to give context for multiplication and division.
Hey kid! Want some candy? So do I and your dad - how much for 3 Snickers bars?
Hey, Gameboy games are on sale three for $40 - how much for two?
We need pizza for 7 people, and everyone will eat at least 3 slices, but not more than 5. Each pizza has 8 slices. How many pizzas should we get for your sleepover and still have money left over for ice cream?
Every time WhyKid goes to the store, he figures out the tax and final total in his head so he can tell me how much change we’ll get. If he’s right, he keeps it. He’s never wrong.
