Maths ditties for children?

[AhJayEff]

This will be a fairly unusual request but hopefully it jogs someone's memory!

When I was a young child in the early Nineties my mother used to play an educational cassette tape during car journeys - "Simple Sums". It was a sing-along audio adventure where a boy and a girl would recite arithmetic with The Professor. I can remember the lyrics of the opening jingle of the tape very distinctly:

"Sums, sums, simple sums
Sing-a-long and have some fun
Add and take-away
You can learn the easy way
Listen carefully
Try to sing-a-long with me
When you go to school
You'll know what to do"

I thought this would be a good thing to jumpstart my own young ones, it'd at least be a change from Cocomelon on repeat, but it course, this was thirty years ago: the cassette I listened to back then is long gone and try as I might I can't find hide nor hair of a copy of it anywhere, I couldn't say who made it or exactly when it was made - even searching for the lyrics on YouTube brings up nothing.

Would anyone else happen to remember "Simple Sums" or something similar and be able to provide more guidance on it?

These days you'd probably find what you need on Spotify. But when my boys (now 19, 16) were little we had a times tables CD from either the Early Learning Centre or Fun Learning (can't remember which). It went through each of the times tables with an upbeat rhythmic tune that stuck with you. It sang 1 x 2 = 2, 2 x 2 = 4 ... 12 x2 = 24, twice, then on the third repetition they left out the answers so we were meant to shout them out. Then it went onto 1 x 3 = 3, etc, in the same way, until it got to 12 x 12. We played it on long car journeys.

My boys are both good at maths - the eldest doing it at uni. I used to count the stairs whenever we went up and down when they were tiny babies.

‘Three is a magic number’ is my absolute favourite. There used to be a club in London in the 90s (smashing by gaslight) that played it occasionally on the dance floor

On a very different level we used to sing
‘9 and 1 are number bonds
8 and 2 are friends
7 and 3
6 and 4
5 and 5 are twins’
to the tune of row row row your boat….

Numberblocks times tables songs on YouTube?

The Early Learning Centre is still around? I Thought They'd gone out of business along with Mothercate years ago.

Funnily enough, it rings a bell... I wonder if I remember an ELC logo on the tape or I'm imposing one.

Thanks for the suggestions so far everyone, it gives me a line to follow.

Either of these?
Simple Sums
Simple takeaway sums

My dcs' Maths teacher sang to the tune of Frere Jacques:

Mean is average
Mean is average
Mode is most
Mode is most
Median's in the middle
Median's in the middle
Range high low
Range high low.

Actually, yes! That "Simple Sums" one with Professor Playtime is exactly the one I remember. Thank you very much for the tip, that was extremely helpful: I've bought a copy and let's hope the tape hasn't degraded after all this time.

Fabulous - fingers crossed!