We’re still drilling multiplication facts. (It seems this is going to take a while.) I’m constantly saying out of the blue, “Count by eights!” or “What’s 9 x 7?” It’s as much work for me to remember to review it as it is for Sprite to learn the facts.
This is a book I bought from Amazon —Math Games to Master Basic Skills: Multiplication & Division
This latest lesson was X7 and X9 facts.
- I gave Sprite all the products and had her divide them into two stacks — multiples of 7 and multiples of 9.
- Then I had her order the products and skip count, reading them outloud. She came up with her own variation — reading in a low voice for the smaller numbers, and progressively raising her voice as the numbers got larger. It was quite silly, but anything that makes math fun is okay with me.
- I asked her why 63 could be found in both rows. She nailed it!
- Then I randomly pointed at products and had her tell me the math problem. We discussed the whole 9 x 8 is the same as 8 x 9 issue.
- To top it all off, we played TWO board games from the NC Math site. I laminated them so we could use Vis-a-vis pens to mark our spots instead of using paper markers. Sprite always loves using those pens, and I like to use lots of variety to keep math fun.
I just posted about our struggle with math, specifically multiplication facts, on my blog. It seems like we have been trying to get them down for a long time now. I am going to have to check out the NC Math site. Thanks for posting about it.
.-= Jill´s last blog ..More Math for Thought =-.
Great ideas for mastering the x facts. The more ideas to pull from the better. Thanks for sharing!
Cheryl
Jimmie, I thought you might find this approach interesting:
http://rightbrainmath.com/
.-= Melissa Telling´s last blog ..Life is Labor, and Death is the Transition Phase =-.
Don’t know if you are aware of the Toymaker site (www.thetoymaker.com/2Toys.html) with patterns for free paper toys. Included are patterns for some multiplication games, a skipcounter and multipies (basically a type of flashcard). Nothing startingly innovative but nicely presented and I;ve found variety can help when trying to master pesky facts!