School has begun again and kids are faced with a new grade level, consisting of new academic challenges. My son is now in Grade 3 and in Canada's school system, that means Multiplication Tables!
We decided to try to get a head start over this past summer with learning them, and after much research, we created a method that has proven to work!
This new method is using special flashcards that I created and designed myself. The cards are specifically colour coded to organize each fact and make memorizing and learning easier for the child. The trick is in the colours!
Green cards are the easy ones: 1, 2, 5, 10 and 11 times tables. By Grade 3, most kids already know these from learning basic skip counting.
Yellow cards are a medium difficulty: 3, 4 and 9 times tables.
3 and 4 are in this category because they are low enough to still be able to skip count, although they may not be as easily memorized as the Green cards.
9 is in this category because of its unique special magic trick, that I will get into later.
Red cards are the most challenging: 6, 7, 8 and 12 times tables.
Here is the unique, clever part, however. By the time your child reaches the Red tables, they have already learned most of them from the previous cards!
So with this method, they will only have 4 facts to learn in the 6 times table, 3 facts to learn in the 7 times table, 2 facts to learn in the 8 times table and only 1 fact to learn in the 12 times table.
That's a lot less intimidating than putting 144 facts in front of them!
Of course, out of those 144 facts, 66 of them are duplicates. These are indicated by the solid black line around the card. Your child can simply put all of the duplicate cards away because they don't need to learn them twice.
That leaves 78 equations, which are broken down like this:
48 Green Cards
17 Yellow Cards
13 Red Cards
Here is how we broke it down over 14 days. We spent the first day refreshing all of the Green cards. After that, each table got 2 days of learning and practice:
Day 1: All Green Cards
Days 2&3: 3 Times Table (7 cards)
Days 4&5: 4 Times Table (6 cards)
Days 6&7: 6 Times Table (5 cards)
Days 8&9: 7 Times Table (4 cards)
Days 10&11: 8 Times Table (3 cards)
Days 12&13: 9&11 Times Tables (4 cards)
Day 14: 12 Times Table (1 card)
And just like that, your child would know all of their Multiplication Tables in a matter of 2 weeks.
Of course, practice makes perfect, so once they have learned them, continue to quiz them, to strengthen their knowledge.
Finally, I didn't forget the "magical" 9 times table that I promised to show you earlier. Here's the magic rule: Subtract 1 and add up to 9.
Examples:
Again?
This works up until 9x9, leaving only 9x12 to learn.
Give this method a try and let me know if it works for your child!