SeaConquest Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 Sacha is working through the BA 3B section on the multiplication table. He has his lower times table down, so I have been teaching him how to use the distributive property to decompose the upper times table into manageable chunks. He gets how to do it, but still doesn't have the upper times table memorized. Should I use something like Times Tales to give him mnemonic devices for memorizing, or will he likely just eventually memorize them through the normal course of repetition in BA? I was taught the multiplication table through rote memorization and speed drills in public school, and had no clue about the distributive property until high school Algebra. I'd like to keep the math as conceptual as possible, but, at some point, he just needs to know the answer cold. Just trying to think about the best way of getting him to that point. Thanks for your advice. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bibiche Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 I would guess he will just eventually memorize them. DS learned how to visualize higher number multiplication with Mortensen math blocks and that was helpful. BA touches on that in 3B (p 56). If you are not opposed to video games, ReflexMath is fun for memorizing math facts, though addictive for certain personality types (like my DS's!). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 What worked best for us was for DD to create a poster of the multiplication facts, hang that over her bed, and look at it every night before going to sleep. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternallytired Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Add them as an assignment in Prodigy. You can choose which fact family to work on and how many questions to ask, and Prodigy will tell you each question that was asked and whether your child got it right. I started a couple days ago, picking different fact families each day and have him do 10 questions of each, and they seem to be almost entirely automatic now. I feel almost devious having worked that practice into something he was already (obsessively, ecstatically) doing. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C&W'sMum Posted October 10, 2015 Share Posted October 10, 2015 We found Times Tales (though silly) to be helpful. My son loves math and has always enjoyed working through problems in his head. I had to take him out of that process to understand that the multiplication tables were facts to be memorized, and once he got them memorized he could move to cooler, more complex problems. I then quizzed him often while we were in the car. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ofus Posted October 10, 2015 Share Posted October 10, 2015 Triangle flash cards! I'm all about the conceptual but you still just need to know multiplication facts cold. Triangle flash cards ~ daily-ish. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathnerd Posted October 10, 2015 Share Posted October 10, 2015 Another endorsement for Times Tales - I don't think that it took DS more than a few days to memorize all the tables with it. He needs to have the facts memorized and be able to randomly recall them in any order - you can reinforce them by skip counting etc to get the concepts clear, but knowing them is the important step to higher math. Having mastered multiplication, we spent time on memorizing division facts as well. My son had to get to the stage where he could easily handle multiplication and division up to 4 digits before concepts like exponents, cube roots, geometric sequences etc became easily accessible to him (some of them self-taught from math related books on his own time). For him, knowing all the facts (including division) made all the difference when it came to advanced math - a year before that, he seemed to get it all, but had difficulty recalling them after a few days. Surprising side effect of all the time spent on automaticity of facts: we put him in a local community math bee for fun - he walked away with the grand prize which was surprising because this kid struggles with slow processing speed issues. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nutella08 Posted October 11, 2015 Share Posted October 11, 2015 For us, Times Tales was helpful to learn the facts initially. But Timez Attack by Big Brainz (http://www.bigbrainz.com/Multiplication.php) was a fun and extremely effective way to drill speed and accuracy up to 12x12. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaConquest Posted October 12, 2015 Author Share Posted October 12, 2015 Ww started Times Tales this morning. It's working brilliantly! Thank you! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle Posted October 12, 2015 Share Posted October 12, 2015 Thanks for the reminder. Ds got really far last year in memorizing facts through playing Reflex, but over the summer he basically forgot all of them!! I bought Times Tales ages ago and then decided not to use it because Reflex was working so well. I think we will give Times Tales a try and then reinforce through Reflex again. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
purpleowl Posted October 12, 2015 Share Posted October 12, 2015 We may try Times Tales as well. We did the free sample yesterday and DD loved it, and today she's had no trouble recalling the four stories/facts from that. We've been camped out drilling multiplication tables for a few weeks, as I don't want to move further ahead before she KNOWS them, and I'm kind of going crazy. If silly mnemonic stories are the ticket, so be it! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted October 12, 2015 Share Posted October 12, 2015 If you don't mind mnemonics, then may I introduce you to finger multiplication? It's actually kinda nifty. And you can use it, to a limited extent, to multiply numbers greater than 10 as well... so long as they're close to each other, basically. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlee Posted October 22, 2015 Share Posted October 22, 2015 School house rock with Kumon. Multiplication memorization was a breeze .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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