times table - boring question but help urgently needed!

[basic123]

H E L P M E P L E A S E - How do you get a thick mum to learn those boring tables all over again and so help her to help her children learn?! We have just reached that stage and before I know it they will know them and I will be grabbing the calculator. Anyone got any tips/advise/suggestions PLEEEESSSSEEEE!!!!!

Is there any way to make it easy/fun?

(Longstanding mumsnetter but had to change my name as I am sooooo ashamed please help!)

[kayleigh]

there is a times table music tape you can get from Early Learning Centre. Play that in the car a few times and you'll be singing them in your sleep !!

[basic123]

Now my confidence is plummeting even more, tapes I end up losing concentration and as for writing it down I just fall asleep told you I was/AM thick! Thanks for taking the time to reply to a hopeless cause. I will keep trying... when I get time!

[sunchowder]

I love Flashcards myself....and singing them helps if yu have an auditory memory. I know it sounds ridiculous.

[tamum]

I guess this would be a bit beneath you, but my ds has one, and it's great for the children!

[WideWebWitch]

This site might help.

[janh]

beetroot, granted you don't have to learn them, but knowing them by rote is the best way to knock it in (easier to learn as a kid than an adult though) and then you've got it. I'm glad I did have to learn them.

basic, write them down on separate sheets and then chant them out loud - or sing them as sunchowder says - it really does help. (I think 6/7/8 are the hardest.)

Good luck!

[jasper]

basic please be assured your kids will learn them far faster than you and this is NORMAL
I know I just don't have the capacity to soak up things like my kids do.
My brain is full .
I am convinced if I have to memorise , say , a new phone number (which incidentally takes me ages) some vital piece of info ( like remembering where I live) will be ejected from my brain to make room .

[emsiewill]

I have lost the brain capacity to learn new phone numbers etc. I think my brain is full. I don't even know my own mobile number, and I'm supposed to be good with numbers.
The link that www did gives loads of different ideas - good luck

[sunchowder]

Oh Emsiewill and Jasper, you are SO funny
I know that feeling, I have often said that during my pregnancy my DD sucked most of the oxygen away from my brain which began the brain damage and then the birth experience itself really finished me off! Well, I know this is not true, but.....I guess it is stress and interrupted sleep and hormones and changing priorities that have truly effected my memory and ability to store information. I have to write everything down at the office or I sound like a bubbling idiot when I cannot remember entire conversations. Thanks for the note of agreement JanH, I sing with my DD all the time (not serious singing, lunatic singing..you know like Tina Turner..) the more we laugh and sing the easier it seems to be for the memorization to take place. Alsoany spare moment we have in car, I torture her with time tablesthose are usually done in high pitched operattas which embarrass her to tears. I try not to take it too seriously--I am not sure if this is the right thing, but it works for us! All the best BASIC123!!

[robinw]

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[slug]

OK Slug the maths teacher to the rescue.

First what you need to do is set up a grid with the numbers 1 - 12 along the top and 1 - 12 down the side. Then working like a bus timetable, put in the ones you know. E.g. if you know 5 x 5 is 25, then put 25 in the 5 column and the 5 row IYSWIM. A bit like this

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

2 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

3 3 6 9 12 15 18 21

4 4 8 12 16 20 24 28

5 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

ETC

So if you want to know what 6 x 4 is for example, put your finger on the 6 column and drag it down till you get to the 4 row and hey presto, read of 24. Start with the ones you know then put the rest in using a calculator.

NOW: Using the times table grid you can be the referee in slug's patented multiplication game which is guaranteed to teach your children their tables. You need to make up cards with the numbers 1 - 12 on them. You can have as many 1's 2's 3's etc as you like, the more there are the better. Divide them into two piles. Each child has an equal pile of cards. They hold them face down. It's a bit like snap, they turn over one card each. The first one to correctly tell you what the two numbers multiplied together are, wins the pair. They then put these on the bottom of their pile. When one child has all the cards, they've won.

I've used this with loads of children and it works because it plays on their natural competitivness.

[slug]

Damn, should have previewed. It should look like a grid with all the multiples of 5 under the column headed 5 etc.

[WideWebWitch]

Jasper, at your brain being full, I so know the feeling atm.

[robinw]

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[boyandgirl]

My mum wrote out times tables for each number on shopping list strips and pasted them up all over the house, usually in weird places like the loo, or the underside of the bookshelf over my head in bed, or on mirrors or windows. Basically anywhere that you might look at them for a few minutes without necessarily thinking about anything else. Sometimes the strips would be in a different colour, or style, or whatever, to make them more noticable. I still often think of certain numbers in certain colours, so I imagine she must have done the 8x table in green, the 5x in yellow, and so on!

[cazzybabs]

I have got my children to use oral, visual and kineasetic (hard days teaching means I have lost the will to spell) methods because most people are dominetly kineasteic learners. The best way so far I have found is to get them to draw round both hands and then inisde each finger write the answer to a table (2, 4, 6, 8, 10...20 etc). Then get them to chant the table with their hands covering up the numbers and as they say the number they have to lift their finger. Hope that makes sense. Also you could play games in the car such as Fizz etc

[fisil]

Google Steve Chinn - he is your tables man, and totally fab - head of only school for discalculic kids.

We invented a game while at a theme park - try saying your 7 times tables while on a big ride. It is hilarious, and helps it sink in!

Have just had great fun with tables with a low ability Y9 group this week - I actually heard one strapping 13 year old saying "I didn't know doing tables could be that good". I wrote 7 14 21 etc. up to 70 on the board and we chanted it, and carried on reading it out, but getting rid of a different number each time - until the board was blank, and then we went backwards - I'm sure you could do something similar at home. There's also a version of this where you also write up a hand action for each number (e.g. L meaning raise left hand) and do the action as you read it, erasing the numbers but not the action. We also had races, who could beat me at writing out a given table.

I've got loads of ideas, but you've probably had enough from an excitable maths teacher right now!

[basic1234]

MASSIVE THANK YOU TO YOU ALL - the links and tips and everything look so useful. I thought last night okay thicko you will have to restart all over again hence nearly crashed the car this morning, missed waves from a couple of friends while I was walking along the road and I walked up and down the same road twice and forgot why result... I've learnt my 9 times table!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. So many thanks and I will keep going and hope I don't forget them. I may not know my own mobile phone number either but keeping up with the children is what matters right now. So MASSIVE THANKS AGAIN for all your tips and encouragement, mumsnetters really are the best - I'm always saying it... ummm, have I just given the game away as to who I usually sign on as?!

[basic1234]

for some reason couldn't sign on as basic123 just now?!?!

[basic1234]

I'm going to use the other ideas to test myself as I am sure I will only forget if I don't keep at it.

[robinw]

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[Thunderbird]

I got a catalogue from a company called BrightMinds (obviously not for me ) and it has LOADS of stuff to help with times tables, inc the twist & shout thing. They also have stuff for phonics, numeracy, science, music etc etc. Can't get link to work, the website is
www.brightminds.co.uk