Do you do times table memorization, or do you teach skip counting first? Oh, and how far do you go? 12's? 15's? I learned table memorization through 12's as a kid (and oddly enough, I actually liked it!), but ds absolutely loves skip counting. He learned 2's a long time ago (built up from the Thomas the Train theme song), and then 5's and 10's during this past semester (because they're so much like counting by 1's), but last week I taught him 3's and 4's using Jingle Bells (took a day to learn them both). Now he's asking for a song for 6 thru 9. He loooooves learning "lists" of anything, so I'm hoping this will make multiplication super easy next year. He can learn pretty much anything when set to music. ... except addition/subtraction, apparently! He still has to hand-count those. He won't do it in his head the way I was taught as a kid.
I just used a timetable and flashcards. Prior to that we practiced skip counting at home and in the car. Never did any songs or the tricks that you can use. Hubby showed DD the 9 trick that I didn't even know. I learned by flashcards and writing out the fact families.
Since he likes things set to music, he might like Multiplication Rap. My kids loved that and did well with it.
We are going with the books pace, but first they're learning some skip counting, like counting by 5's, 10's, 7's (days in 1 week, 2 weeks). Then we moved on to the concept of groups of and then after that, flash cards and drills. Seems to be working pretty well but we've just begun.
We did the same as you: Learning tables to 12 by rote (I wish now that we'd done them to 20). It's one of those things that can be taught that way, and it is important that multiplication skills become second nature.
My daughter is not fond of doing math at all, but she picked up multiplication on her own before we began covering it...:roll:. Boggles my mind sometimes, how that child's mind works.
We have been working on skip counting, we taked timed tests to see how many they can do in 1 min. (they love to beat their score), and play multiplication.com
We didn't use memorization or skip counting. We used manipulatives and written numbers. I am more concerned that my kids know WHY multiplication happens because I know how much it means later to understand how and why math works when you are doing things like trig. and calc., it was always the kids who simply learned rote memorization of their multiplication facts that struggled in the classes I took in school.
math-u-see teaches skip counting along with addition and subtraction. Sure, it's a base for multiplication and we know that, but MUS teaches it as mastery of counting and number sequence. Then with the third book we memorize facts, which is easy if they learned to skip count in alpha and beta. *shrug*
Try the counting songs on Have Fun Teaching! havefunteaching.com/songs/counting-songs Great way to learning counting, skip counting, and multiplication!
I could've written that myself! As a general rule, ds hates math. It's his hardest subject, so like anything in life that is hard, we often prefer to skip it. For some reason, lists and factoids and stuff are fun to him, so I suppose skip counting (and a little multiplication already) come easy to him? He's starting to do some VERY basic division on his own now, too. But his addition/subtraction skills are still lacking. If I did grades (which I don't), he'd probably have all A's except a C in math. LOL!!
I agree. I wish we'd learned through 20 (or 25!) as well. I use things like 13 and 15 all the time. I've learned them over the years (or figured out how to do the estimation/subtraction trick for ones I didn't learn), but it would've been a lot easier if I'd just learned them in the first place. Oh well. I DO plan to teach common ones like 15's to my kids, though.
As a child, I remember learning multiplication using patterns. For example, when multiplying by 9, the last digit of each successive product in the table is reduced by 1: 9, 18, 27, 36, ... To some extent, it was the same for other tables. By the way, there is a strong correlation between classical music, math, and chess. In each case, those who excel in the subject have the ability to recognize patterns. Personally, I was trained as a classical musician, used to teach graduate level math, and was one of the top chess players in the region. I couldn't help but notice that I was not alone in sharing these traits. There is a fourth related ability, actually, although computers have made this one redundant: code-breaking. Once again, the ability to recognize patterns is important. I don't know whether it would help, but based on this observation (which has been documented in several books), why not play classical music in the background and teach your son to play chess. Maybe you can also play games by conveying messages in code. As he develops the ability to see and use patterns, you may well find that he'll do well in math. For sure, it was true for me. And we did require our children to listen to classical music.
the trick that i learned with 9 is that any number that adds up the digits to equal 9 or a multiple of 9 is in itself a multiple of 9. so it goes 9, 18, 27... etc etc but instead of remembering that each succesive one is reduced by 1, which requires some counting up and up until you get the number you're on... but if you do it my way if you want to look for, say, 9*6 then you notice first that it is below 9*10, so you will knock it down into the next 10s place down (and what i mean by this is you would think 10*6= 60 so 9*6 must be in the 50s) and then you scan through your head to see what in the 50s adds up to 9. if you wanted to do 9*16 then you would notice that it was past 9*10 but below 9*20, so you would kick it down two tens places (so from the 160s to the 140s) and look for what adds up to a multiple of 9 there, so its 144. If you want to find out what 9*83 is then you notice that it is between 9*90 & 9*1000 so you knock it down 9 tens place, so it would be in the 740s range and it would be a multiple of 9. since 7+4=11 it would have to add up to 18, so it would be 747. and this goes on and on and on. it's actually REALLY easy when you get it
I would not worry about instant recall yet. Skip counting now is still great. I know a lot of homeschool skip over math facts, but if your child is going to have success at higher level maths (by success, I mean not just barely get through algebra, I mean really get it and not have it be painful and hopefully complete the entire high school series before college) then your child needs to know math facts fast. This need really starts in algebra when they are factoring. They have to be able to figure factors quick because one problem might have several places where factoring is needed. If your child is taking 60 seconds to recall a math fact or having to look them up, factoring will become a nightmare and it won't get any better. In fact, well before algebra, when doing fractions, if they don't have the times tables down, it will be all the more difficult!
We just started multiplication, but we do have several skip counting songs under our belt. I think we will still memorize the multiplication table just for quicker recall I myself struggled with math, so my DH is very helpful when I struggle teaching a concept
Couldn't have said this better. My husband is a middle school math teacher, my mom taught highschool, and over the years, fewer and fewer students have their tables memorized and it makes higher math that much more difficult. I have been doing timed tests with DS and was rather shocked when we did the first, 3s, and he got only 25 of 100. He was shocked too for he thought he "knew" them. Yes, he knew how to come to the answers, but it was taking way too long. We do timed tests daily, working our way through until he gets 100%. He is so excited by his improvement and his progress. We are offering little rewards everytime he passes with 100% which has been motivating too.
