App./board game/anything?? that helps memorize multiplication facts?

[Alicia64]

Hi Everyone,

 

My nine-year-old boy is having a hard time memorizing the multiplication facts. We do Teaching Textbook math and we're on grade four.

 

We've done Times Tales -- which was really cute and quite helpful. But it only hit certain facts. It doesn't do the 5's for instance and the boy counts by 5's on his fingers to get the answer. :glare:

 

Do you have an fun app. or internet game that would help him memorize? Or a board game? Anything??

 

TIA!

 

Alley

[West Coast Mom]

We've had success with Reflex Math. It is Internet based at $30/year.

[hsbaby]

No advice, but I can commiserate! My 9 yo ds is the same way!! I've been supplementing with Beast Academy, using Flashcards daily, daily speed drills, etc. It's just not sticking do I'll be watching this thread for advice:)

[LittleIzumi]

My girls use Math Rider (horse-based) and Math Bingo. There's also Rocket Math.

[Amy in NH]

I'm not all that concerned about learning multiplication tables being a fun activity. We used to use One-Minute Math drills, but there isn't enough variety for each particular fact to use it until mastery. For the past few months we've used Xtra Math every day to improve their fluency with basic math facts. You can set it up for whichever function they are learning; dd works on addition, ds10 works on multiplication. I like the way it gives a prompt if they take too long, and immediate feedback for a wrong answer with required self-correction. It is free; you just set up your own classroom and add your kids as students. It works for us... DS10 is now 91% proficient with his multiplication facts.

[HSinNH]

We tried many "fun" activities to learn math facts, to no avail. We finally went to good old-fashioned flashcards and memorized a few each day and kept reviewing the ones that were memorized. It worked great. DDs had all multiplication and division facts up to 12 memorized in a few weeks.Sometimes schoolwork is just that....work. It can't all be fun. But, it was nice to get that task out of the way!

[AlmiraGulch]

Thanks for this info. DD9 is gifted in many ways, but she has also not learned her multiplication facts thoroughly. It's starting to affect her ability to complete higher-level math efficiently, and since they're doing algebra in her Target (gifted) program at school, she is experiencing some frustration.

[Amber in SJ]

You can try IXL

 

http://www.ixl.com/

 

You can do 20 problems free every day. If you go to third grade skills the Multiplication drills are there.

 

My 7yo ds loves Timez Attack by Big Brainz. He has worked his way through the free version. My 9yo dd is stressed out by it. Go figure.

 

Amber in SJ

[Amber in SJ]

Also some people love Quarter Mile Math

 

http://www.thequartermile.com/

 

you can download the demo.

 

Amber in SJ

[Alicia64]

I'm not all that concerned about learning multiplication tables being a fun activity. We used to use One-Minute Math drills, but there isn't enough variety for each particular fact to use it until mastery. For the past few months we've used Xtra Math every day to improve their fluency with basic math facts. You can set it up for whichever function they are learning; dd works on addition, ds10 works on multiplication. I like the way it gives a prompt if they take too long, and immediate feedback for a wrong answer with required self-correction. It is free; you just set up your own classroom and add your kids as students. It works for us... DS10 is now 91% proficient with his multiplication facts.

 

Thanks, Amy. The boys did Xtra Math this a.m. It may just be what we need.

 

Alley

[grovegirl]

My daughter *loves* the game Speed by Highhill Educational Supplies. We got it on Amazon.com for about $17. The games is 9 decks of cards that teach the multiples of each number. (It is played like the card game War) I noticed an improvement right away.

[Julie Smith]

There is Timez Attack. It's fun, but my kids were stressed out by the time pressure of it. But still I'll throw it out there because it looks like a video game rather than a math game.

 

I second the time timez attack idea. My boys really liked it.

[I talk to the trees]

For dd's 1st birthday, I requested that my parents buy her the Schoolhouse Rock cd collection. We listened to them all.the.time. I don't have any proof that they actually helped her with her multiplication tables, but she never had any trouble with multiplication. I still find myself singing "Figure Eight" and "Conjunction Junction" and a couple of others, especially while I'm doing housework. :lol: Well, I guess they worked for *me*, didn't they?

[gingersmom]

http://www.amazon.com/Educational-Insights-8490-MathShark/dp/B00000IRMM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350668591&sr=8-1&keywords=math+shark

 

It was so much fun we took it with us everywhere. Nothing like learning multiplication while driving in the car. :001_smile:

[JenMama]

http://www.xtramath.org

 

It's free and only takes about 5 minutes/day. I've used it with both of mine and it worked beautifully!

[abbeyej]

Timez Attack has been *tremendously* helpful for my dd. Yes, there have been tears from time to time -- but a year of doing it for 10-20 minutes a day (more in the first few months, less now) has made a *profound* difference in her ability to recall facts.

[Amy in NH]

For dd's 1st birthday, I requested that my parents buy her the Schoolhouse Rock cd collection. We listened to them all.the.time. I don't have any proof that they actually helped her with her multiplication tables, but she never had any trouble with multiplication. I still find myself singing "Figure Eight" and "Conjunction Junction" and a couple of others, especially while I'm doing housework. :lol: Well, I guess they worked for *me*, didn't they?

 

The problem with learning any facts set to music is that you always have to sing the song to remember the fact.

[redsquirrel]

Also feeling the Timez Attack love here! My older son went from struggling with every.single.question. in multiplication to having the entire thing memorized in about 3 days. It was amazing.

[Mom in High Heels]

Urgh, we have this same problem. BEFORE he went to Kindergarten, Indy could do simple math in his head (not multiplication, obviously, but adding and subtracting), but his K teacher taught all the kids to use their hands for math and I've never been able to fix it. We drill all the time, but I'm constantly catching him using his fingers for math.

 

 

The problem with learning any facts set to music is that you always have to sing the song to remember the fact.

 

To this day, I can not say the Preamble to the Constitution without singing it. :D

[Tutor]

I've seen a lot of improvement in my son's math facts since he started playing "Math Bingo" on my iPod. I don't require him to play a certain amount every day or anything; he just likes to play it and plays it frequently.

[Mrs Mungo]

We like Motion Math: Wings. But, we have used most of the things mentioned in this thread. Whatever works!

[I talk to the trees]

The problem with learning any facts set to music is that you always have to sing the song to remember the fact.

 

Gosh. I didn't realize that singing a song was a bad thing/problem. :confused: Any mnemonic device is going to be a crutch for a while, until the facts are mastered.

[GnomeyNewt]

We tried xtramath first as it is free, but my daughter hated it. As for the program itself, it is wonderful! They can login and do "flashcards" which you can also use on a tablet. It keeps track of progress for you. We tried it for a few months, but those 5 minutes were like fingernails on a chalkboard with her so we moved on. Just plain flash cards were the same thing as xtramath, so those weren't "fun" for her either.

 

What we have ended up doing for addition but we will do this for subtraction and multiplication as well, is a multi-sensory type program. Worksheets, games, flash cards, and reward book (sort of like All About Spelling charts which my daughter loves) combined to sort of bring out memorization of these facts.

 

The program I've found, though it is printing intense and it was designed for classroom use, but I managed to adapt it to home use is these Mental Math Strategies:

 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Shelley-Gray/Category/Mental-Math

 

You can download individual strategies or a whole set for either addition, subtraction or multiplication. I can only speak on the addition so far which we've done over the past 2 months and through all the curriculum (Math Mammoth (primary curriculum for 1st/2nd), Teaching Textbooks, Singapore, Miquon, and random Scholastic $1 books) we've tried, nothing has made her facts stick as the strategies/activities I found in these units. My daughter does well with workbooks, she prefers them most of the time but for math facts this multi-sensory approach that reinforces concepts with multiple activities has worked like a charm.

 

The creator of these units has made videos you can click on in the descriptions. They are quite lengthy up to 10 minutes which explain her product and exactly what they teach and how if your interested.

 

 

To this day, I can not say the Preamble to the Constitution without singing it. :D

 

On a side note... Me too! I can sing many famous documents... :lol:

Edited October 19, 2012 by GnomeyNewt

[kiana]

Gosh. I didn't realize that singing a song was a bad thing/problem. :confused: Any mnemonic device is going to be a crutch for a while, until the facts are mastered.

 

I know a lot of people who still sing the alphabet song while alphabetizing. Is it that big of a deal? :p

[blondeviolin]

I've heard really good reviews about Mythmatical Battles. A certain girl I know will be getting a deck or two for Christmas. Bonus is they learn mythology at the same time. Here's their website.

[PenKase]

We currently use the Math Drills iPad App and play Multiplication War ala Lets's Play Math website. It's been somewhat tedious trying to memorize multiplication facts but, DD8 is very motivated to do Algebra and knows that she has to get through this hump to go forward. We tried other "fun" things but they were not sticking.

[Ghee]

We have all of the Squeebles math apps. We also used the Math Bingo app.

[6wildhorses]

Apps that worked great for us are TimesTables (it has a tiger on the icon) and Math Fact Master.

[Jaz]

Timez Attack fans here.

[Mommy22alyns]

Xtramath has been a hit here too.

[Belacqua]

Another vote for Schoolhouse Rock (I still picture that mouse in the pool table when I need to multiply by nine).

 

My Constitutional Law professor offered a dollar to anybody who could recite the preamble without singing. He had zero takers.

[Lizzie in Ma]

Mine struggled too. I let them use a multiplication chart through 7th grade and by 8th they pretty much had them down cold.

[melbotoast]

I thought these were a really cute idea.

[Lolly]

Have him make his own multiplication table every single day. After he makes it, he can use it to do his math if he needs to. One other good way to learn math facts is to simply have him write out each fact family every day. If he has trouble with a particular family, have him do that group twice. It isn't nearly as painful and time consuming as it sounds like it would be.

[HS Mom in NC]

Math U See's Skip counting songs on CD. I believe you can still buy one separately from the rest of the curriculum. My kids had them memorized before we even introduced the idea of multiplication and division. My 7 year old can write out an entire multiplication chart from memory in a few minutes by just humming along.

[Incognito]

I haven't read the whole thread, but I learned mine on one of these as a kid.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Small-World-Toys-Preschool-Multiplying/dp/B00000IUCE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351272977&sr=8-1&keywords=multiplication+table+game

[shanvan]

I'm another one who is not really interested in the 'fun' approach. I tried fun approaches when Ds was learning math facts and they all seemed to take up way too much time and quizzed on very few facts with enough repetition to actually accomplish mastery and quick recall.

 

Dd uses the Math u See drill page, which I like b/c you can select which facts your Dc works on. It also times them and tells how long the drill took instead of limiting the time and making Dc feel pressured. Then they can work the same facts and try to improve their time.

 

I combine it with drill worksheets, skip counting w/ me taking turns, and out loud drill so I can see how quickly Dc can answer.

 

My Dd got rusty during the summer and she's currently working on faster recall.

[JenC3]

Well I did this foR my dd and it worked. I had several WTM Moms pm me about. Not too flashy though.

[Forget-Me-Not]

My 9 yo DS is currently hooked on the Math Ninja app. You can set it to different difficulty levels and any combo of the 4 functions. There's a free version to try before you buy :)

[Kirch]

Math U See's Skip counting songs on CD. I believe you can still buy one separately from the rest of the curriculum. My kids had them memorized before we even introduced the idea of multiplication and division. My 7 year old can write out an entire multiplication chart from memory in a few minutes by just humming along.

 

I like skip counting as a start for multiplication skills (RS focuses a lot on skip counting), but I don't see how skip counting translates to quick random recall. I wouldn't consider 7x8 memorized unless ds can say "56" without having to go through "7-14-21-28-35-42-49" first, kwim? My ds has the skip counting patterns memorized as well, which has helped, but in a few years when he's doing algebra or whatever and he needs a multiplication fact, having to think through the skip counting pattern is going to be much slower than just knowing it immediately.

 

We play a lot of multiplication war to strengthen random recall of facts, but it does get old after a while. Off to check some of the other ideas!

[mamakelly]

I've tried dvds, video games, skip counting, flash cards etc....None of it worked. The other day I posted in the special needs forum about the new thing we are doing for multiplication, and it's working!!

 

Here's a c&p from my post there. In a later post I post picture of one of the cards with the story.

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/showthread.php?t=434904

 

I'm doing Dianne Craft's "Brain Integration Therapy" with my two middle kids. So far so good, it seems to be helping.

 

One of our huge hurdles for my daughter has been multiplication facts. She's almost 11 and in 5th grade. We've been working on multiplication facts since 3rd grade. I've done so many different things so help her, it's crazy. I bought Dianne Craft's Right Brain Multiplication cards, and have been following her instructions to help my dd memorize them. This is the beginning of week 3 using them. We introduce 5 facts a week. She knows 10 facts already, and is on her way to learning the 5 for this week. It's amazing. I can't believe how easy it's been. Diane says that right brain learners need pictures, color, humor etc.. to help things stick. At first I thought it was stupid, showing her the fact cards and reading the whole long story to her, but she totally gets it. So if anyone else's kid is struggling with multiplication facts, it's definitely worth a try!

 

http://stores.diannecraft.org/Detail.bok?no=14

[shusband]

My boys love these.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Multiplication-Wrap-Up-Keys-no-LWUK103/dp/B0007P95JA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351318368&sr=8-1&keywords=wrap+ups+multiplication

 

Summer

[leann_in_tx]

There are a couple of games I am aware of that I have NOT tried, my kids are still a little young, but they have rave reviews and sound like fun.

 

Muggins is one, which is $39,

 

and Math Dice, (I guess Think Fun Math Dice is the full name), which is only $6.

 

Both involve trying to reach a target number by using addition, multiplication, etc.

 

There's also Sumoku. Which is a little like scrabble with numbers but you have to use multiples.

 

They sound fun to me. I hated math in school and sometimes just looking over math work pages makes me want to squirm a little, (I'm using Miquon with my 6 year old), so any time I see these types of games, I drool over them and therefore remember them.