Times on the Table

One of the things I worked with a lot with student A over the summer was TIMES TABLES.

While I am not a supporter of a lot of rote repetition when it comes to learning math, I definitely support repetition when it comes to remembering math. But only after the initial learning has taken place.

It doesn’t do a student any good to memorize the times tables if the student doesn’t even understand what the times tables are. Such was the case with A. We spent a lot of time just learning about numbers in general, and then specifically multiplication, before we moved on to memorizing the times tables.

As part of “figuring out” the times tables, we learned a lot of tricks, and used some games, songs, and pictures to learn the times tables. We looked at patterns in the numbers, talked about sets, and played a lot with Cuisenaire rods to get a physical grasp of the concept.

Only then did we move on to drills.

Here are the posts describing how we learned each set of times tables.

Twos
Threes – Three is a Magic Number
Fours
Fives
Sixes
Sevens
Eights
Nines – The Great Nines
Tens
Elevens – Some Tricky 11’s – in each place
Twelves

If you have questions, you can ask them in the comments, email me, ask on Facebook, or on Twitter. I am on Facebook and Twitter live from 3:00-3:30 pm Mon-Thurs MDT.