What is the best way to get times tables into kids that don't really like maths or does it not matter?

[Kazooblue]

Dd hates maths.

2,5,10,11and 3 picked up fair effortlessly.Now we're on 6 they're going in less easily and she hates maths so how what is the best way for the rest?

I'll show her the various tricks but if all else fails is just learning by rote ok?

One of those grids
like this

I should say that it wasn't until the grand old age of 43 that I learnt my tables using the kids' Squeebles app!

Haha haveapear that's very useful, thank you!! I know a few - obviously the fives, twos and tens - it's the sevens, eights and nines I have trouble with!

My mum drummed into me that 6 x 8 = 48, 7 x 7 = 49 and 6 + 8 = 14, so I basically do all my mental arithmetic from that basis! ;)

Sing, bribe.

Stick a copy of the 10x10 table (large) on front of her maths book.

Later on, reduce the table to a triangle to reinforce that you only need to remember half the table.

Where is the sick on the ground song please? Also I LOVE the idea of burning the cards feelling!

another app is Times Table Clock, good for those visual learners who don't get on with the auditory repetition/songs angle. There's another set of rhyming cards (something like times table rhyme) that has a lot of rhymes for each fact that kind of go with different characters. Also SumDog has a lot of games that practice multiplication, though it tends to be recognition rather than actually coming up with the right answer, which is a slightly different process. I remind children that there are only 36 facts that have to be learned between 2x and 9x, and a good chunk of those they already know, leaving only about 10-15 needing to be actually memorised. Doing just one of them each day and letting the children come up with a reason/method to remember that one can help.

It's not a song just one rhyme to remember 8x8 which is as above I ate and I ate till I was sick on the floor (64) could do with some more rhymes though any one else know of any? :)

Maths Bingo app is good too. And good old fashioned learning by rote and bribaey. ie writing them out, and then doing the sums in random order (times and divides). A penny for every correct one is the current rate - my daughter is saving up for a new top Model colouring book thing and well on her way!

The one I used to use when teaching Maths was times table snap.

For 3 players (or 2 and a parent)

You need a set of cards with the numbers 1, 2, 3 etc, right up to 12. You can vary the ratios of the cards in the pack i.e. load it with more 2s and 3s but you need at least one of each number. You also need to make it clear which one is a 6 and which a 9 etc

Divide the cards into two even piles.

Each player holds the cards face down. They both expose once card from the top of their pile at the same time.

The first one to accurately shout out the product of the two numbers wins the cards. These cards are gathered up and placed face down at the bottom of the pile they already own

The aim is to win all the cards.

Player 3 is the adjudicator. Sometimes it helps to supply them with a times table square. They get to decide who was first with the accurate answer and to punish any obvious cheating.

In the case of a dead draw with the answer, the turn goes to a war. The two exposed cards are left face up. Each player puts one card face down over the exposed card, then both flip another face up. The winner gets all 6 cards.

Play this with siblings and I guarantee the natural competitiveness will result in shouted games and a very swift absorption of the times tables. You could also try it with friends/cousins/classmates or someone near in age/ability.

Not the weather for it, but I used swingball as a learning tool for DD - I'd say a sum to her as I hit the ball, and she couldn't hit it back until she came up with the answer. The secret wasn't really anything fantastic, just that it was a method that didn't make her instantly EXTREMELY grumpy. She may also have stuck with it because she knew I'd play swingball with her as long as she kept up the times tables (she loves swingball, I bloody don't).

She really did struggle with everything bar 1 and 10, until she got to 7, which I told her was the hardest times table. She very smugly told me it was easy ... of course by then she knew all the sums except 7 x 7.

DH meanwhile has a first class maths degree and has to work out 7 x 8 by adding 7 to 49 - it's alright to have a blind spot or two in tables, as long as you have a strategy!

Squeebles. Dd was resistant to learning her times tables for a year, then learnt them in 2 weeks when I bought the Squeebles app. It's on keystagefun.com. Can't recommend it enough.

Thanks for all the fantastic tips on this thread. Dd is dyslexic and struggles with sequencing, we've tried a few things, she has the sqeebles app and our latest thing is that I,ve written out the answers on A5 card, I scatter them over the floor and she has to jump from one answer to the other when I call out the question. I'm not sure if it's working, but it just needs trial and error on different techniques.

The funny thing is some of them she remembers, so she instantly knows 7x6 but struggles with3x3.

Deffo learning by rote. I was never taught my tables at my hippy primary school and my maths really suffered. We use mathletics songs, very catchy but have been stuck in my head for the last few weeks!

Another Squeebles App. fan here, our DDs actually ask to do maths they enjoy it so much. Repetition and throwing out random questions when doing other things - you know, they're colouring a picture and you call out 'seven eights?'

How old are the children who like the Squeebles App?

timestableclock.com is an excellent little app based on clock solitaire.

It is fun too whether or not you need to practice tables (no, it doesn't belong to me but I do wish I had thought of it)!!

little and often here as well. DD practices hers on the way to school to earn her computer time, just 5 minutes. As she got onto 7, 8 and 9 we started doing 5 mins in the evening too, before bedtime story.

So we incentivise bribe here and it's working she is seven and knows them all, just working on speed of recall now.

Thanks to Sugarbeach and anyone else who recommended squeebles app.

Downloaded this evening for DD who hates times tables, in the end I had to prise the iPad off her! just hope she's as keen tomorrow.

We got a cd and played it in the car. It seemed to help.

Great thread. Two tips that might be helpful, speaking as a mum of a tables-hater.
First is 5-6-7-8 (7x8 =56) as that's a tricky one.
Second is a trick for 9x table. Hold up both hands in front of you and each finger represents 1-10 of the 9x table. So for 1x9, put down the first digit. You then calculate the answer as every finger to the left of the lowered digit is the tens column and everything to the right is the units. Much easier to do than write!
So if you are doing 3x9, you'd put down the middle finger of your left hand. There would then be two digits to the left (ie 20) and seven digits to the right (ie 7), making 27.
Anyone still with me?

EATmum, the nine time table trick with fingers was revelatory to me! It absolutely works and my elder two find it useful too =)

Like the 5678 trick, there's also 1234 (12=3x4).

The six times table counting fives then ones will be so helpful for DD - we're at the tricky stage of learning 6, 7 and 8's just now. Apparently sevens are the most difficult to learn. I've seen mention of using a telephone keypad to help work them out. It does kind of work but is a bit tricky to explain.

A telephone keypad has the numbers set out like this:

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
0

Start off in the bottom left corner with the 7 (that is 1x7). Go up one (to the four) and add a one before it (2x7 is 14). Up to the one for 3x7=21. Back down to the eight: 4x7=28, and so on. Leaving the zero for last which is 10x7=70.

It's not so straightforward but could be helpful in at least recalling the end digits of the 7xtables!

It does matter as not knowing really holds them up with other things later on.

Struggling to follow some of these fingers tricks and rhymes now.....isn't it easier to just learn the times tables straight by rote than having to remember all these various tricks....?

...have fun, have fun, with multiplicaaatioooon!....

I will never, ever in all my born days get that tune out of my head. Thanks for nothing, times tables tape from the 90s. And I have it all to go through again in about 4 years' time...