Multiplication Help

I have always struggled with my multiplication tables due to moving multiple times during those years I was to learn them. Long story short, I never fully learned them until around college! So naturally I was a bit nervous teaching my kids and I had them doing xtramath.org daily and I saw great improvement with them doing + & – and I knew I would never do the flash cards. I hate them since I tried learning from them for years with no success. I learned about a DVD called Times Tales. Yes it is a bit goofy and it looks like it is for 1st or 2nd graders, but it works. I used it with my 2nd & 3rd grader last year and within an hour they knew them. Now we had to keep reviewing to get it from short term to long term, but it was super easy. It only covers the harder ones. You still have to teach the 0’s, 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, 10′, 11’s, & 12’s…. by year end last year both of my kids could fill in a multiplication chart on their own without any problems and I know their math this year is a lot easier because they know them. I highly recommend this product!!   It’s teaching method is a bit strange. It just tells you a bunch of stories and the characters represent different numbers (Mrs. Weeks is a 7 because there are 7 days in a week) anyway after you here the stories, then it drills you on the stories and once you have the stories learned, then the answers are in the story and apparently our brains can remember a story easier than some random numbers. I had no intention of learning the stories, but after one watching, they are imprinted on my brain. The best thing is that since they know the story, once we started division, they are having an easier time of it too. HTH best of luck.   Oh and btw, I have never used one single flashcard with either kid! 

We use Math-u-See. When a new set of facts was introduced, I made flashcards on construction paper. My daughter worked through her flashcards each day before working on her math assignment. She learned all her multiplication facts this way in a short amount of time. I put the factors on one side (5×3) and the product on the other (15), so they were self correcting. Just offering another option. 😉

We use Miquon in conjunction with CLE. Miquon is mastery and it’s not designed to go in exact order. So I typically pull 2 worksheets for her to do before CLE based on things she needs more practice on or things that were just introduced in CLE. Sometimes I let her look at the list and choose which things she wants to work on. I believe Miquon would make a great supplement to any spiral program. Combining the mastery makes a huge difference for her and I have not even been drilling flash cards. She is just naturally gaining the understanding which makes her naturally pick up on the facts. CLE has not even introduced multipication yet but, she really wanted to learn it so I have been letting her do Miquon sheets in multipication. She just breezes right through CLE because she is gaining mastery.

xtramath.org really helped my son learn his facts, once he understood it was more important to get it right than to get it fast.