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I am not creative. My son is a little behind in his math facts. We drill. It is so boring it is like pulling teeth. *I* hate it. And the facts are not sticking. He has TimezAttack which he does do. Any other clever ideas for practicing math facts?
Practice in the car; roll two dice and add/subtract/multiply them (you can also use a deck of cards - place 2 cards face up, face cards are 10, aces are 1); have them do timed work sheets, play computer games, use flash cards. Sometimes kids like to compete against each other to see who can come up with the answer the fastest.
Once they can give a correct answer quickly from memorization (not using fingers!), put those facts aside and concentrate on the ones that they are still slow to answer.
My youngest just didn't get the memorization-from-facts-on-paper thing. What got her going was using tactile ways of counting. I got a bag full of pretty little plastic crystals from the craft store for cheap and we used them to count out, add, subtract. The magic light-bulb moment for her was when we made groups of numbers (multiplication)... I could see her getting it right then. She was around the 4th grade when we did this.
My youngest just didn't get the memorization-from-facts-on-paper thing. What got her going was using tactile ways of counting. I got a bag full of pretty little plastic crystals from the craft store for cheap and we used them to count out, add, subtract. The magic light-bulb moment for her was when we made groups of numbers (multiplication)... I could see her getting it right then. She was around the 4th grade when we did this.
That's a good point. They should understand the concepts behind the facts that they are memorizing. (ie: 3x3 = 3 three times or 3+3+3)
That's a good point. They should understand the concepts behind the facts that they are memorizing. (ie: 3x3 = 3 three times or 3+3+3)
Yup. That has been solid for a long time. It is just the rote that is missing. If the truth were told, I was a math major in college, and I never learned my multiplication facts. In school I could do the repetitive addition as fast as everyone else could do the memorization. So I always passed the tests. I hate math fact memorization, and I think that vibe has translated. I have told him what a disadvantage not having them memorized has been for me. I am going to start memorizing them with him.
I have found that instead of actual practice times, which my kids hated, it worked better doing it sponstaneously in the car. While driving, I would give them each a "fact". Maybe one was working on their X6, while another was just starting x2 (maybe another would be on +5 or call out its ten partner). So I would call out 5, and then get 3 different responses. Eventually, they all caught up to working on the same facts, I think because the youngest was so eager to catch up, and the oldest is too cool to care about all this silliness. I found that making it a habit in the car, would make for shorter and funner sessions more often, rather than sitting down for "drills".
Do you have an iphone or ipod touch... they have some cool games, and sometimes the short frequent sessions work better than the longer, at home ones.
I never memorized some of my 8's or 12's... tried to memorize them with my kids this time around.... still don't have them down (and we practiced ALOT)! For 8 x 7, I still do 7 X 7, +7 in my head. Of course it takes a second to do..... but I cannot for the life of me just memorize that it is 56!! I think it has to be done young.... tell me how it works for you!
We're not at multiplication tables yet, but we do addition and subtraction flash card drills with a timer. He likes to beat the clock. If he gets one wrong, it goes back in the deck, and we try to get through the deck in X minutes. Then X-1 minutes, etc.
Yup. That has been solid for a long time. It is just the rote that is missing. If the truth were told, I was a math major in college, and I never learned my multiplication facts. In school I could do the repetitive addition as fast as everyone else could do the memorization. So I always passed the tests. I hate math fact memorization, and I think that vibe has translated. I have told him what a disadvantage not having them memorized has been for me. I am going to start memorizing them with him.
LOL. One of my kids thinks along these lines - why memorize boring facts when I can do the calculations so quickly in my head?!
He grasps the concepts, knows how to do the problems and from there he just wants to move on already. It's hard to sit on him and say - "No, you need to know these facts from memory!" but that's what I've had to do with this kid.
We always did one fact a day and I would ask repeatedly thru the day, "Now what's 9x7?" Half the time I'd flip it so it was 7x9 and I liked those triangular flash cards that had 9 in one corner, 7 in another, and 63 in the third corner so they'd learn the multiplication and division problem at the same time.
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I hate math fact memorization, and I think that vibe has translated. I have told him what a disadvantage not having them memorized has been for me. I am going to start memorizing them with him.
