Time tables and multiplication go hand in hand, and they are an essential part of maths in both primary and secondary school. So how do you support your child with learning them in as stress-free a way as possible?
Learning the 12 timestables and how to use them in multiplication is an essential part of primary school; children these days are expected to know their twelve times tables by the end of year 3, but many children get as far as year 11 and still have issues.
A quarter of UK students leave primary and secondary school innumerate (poor or no knowledge of maths), so it is clear that an inability to use timetables is often missed by teachers and parents alike.
What is the Purpose of Multiplication?
AN ability to use multiplication will help children with a number of everyday tasks in life, such as banking, cooking, and even taking a bus or getting to a destination on time. Maths is important in these examples and so is multiplication to help make good choices – how to make a portion of a recipe; the right time to leave in order to catch a train or a plane, for example.
How to Help Your Child With Multiplication
Apart from learning times tables, and then teaching your child how to apply them to long multiplication, there are other everyday activities that can be used to support children in their learning of this area of their learning.
Expose Your Child to Maths on a Daily Basis
The practical application of maths can go a long way in helping children master their timetables – and maths in general. This is something parents should aim to do at every given chance. For example, even playing football can be made mathematical when you get down to how the coach plans the plays. It’s one reason a lot of coaches are also maths teachers.
Watch the video below for some other fun games and ideas from the primary resource website, Twinkl, for some more ideas:
Create and Hang Up a Times Table Sheet – Or Print One
The more a child sees the times tables chart, the more they’ll remember. You can either print off a timetable poster online or make it fun by encouraging them create a times table sheet and hang it on the wall or the fridge, where they can see it everyday.
Teach the Easiest Concepts First – Take Maths Step By step!
Start with super-easy concepts like multiplying by zero, then one, and then two before you move on to harder concepts.
You may want to do the 5’s before you do 3’s as they are harder to learn.
Learn Times Tables Faster With the Doubling Method
After that, you can use the doubling method, which is a fantastic way for children to blitz through their times tables learning. It can cut the learning process time significantly! Watch the video below to find out about the doubling method.
Show Them the Math Tricks That You Know
One way to show children that maths can be fun is to show them the neat tricks you know about maths, such as the doubling method above.
One method that is great for kids is showing them how you can do your 9’s on your fingers, as shown in the video below.
Put the Work to Song
Head over to YouTube and look for ‘multiplication songs’ and you’ll find fun songs for all your multiplication tables. Singing these songs and hearing them repeatedly can help your child learn their multiplication tables quickly and speedily – in a fun and stress-free manner.
Play the Math Card War Game
This game is quite simple: each player turns over the cards and the fastest to guess the total wins the round. You can do this with any type of cards that have numerical values, so you can turn your other cards into the War Math Card game easily.
Quiz Your Children on Random Multiplication Questions
Randomly ask your child some multiplication questions. If you can make it relevant, that is better.
You can even download a free time stables app onto your child’s tablet, which will do all of the above, but with lots of space ships, points and other child-friendly rewards for guessing the correct answer in time!
As you can see, there are lots of options when it comes to helping your child to learn their times tables. It doesn’t have to evolve around the mundane lists and learning by rote alone.
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