I am back :)…

I have found its not so easy as mugging up was never my cup of tea.

But teaching a child to mug up and memorize tables is not at all happening!

Obviously, the understanding of the concept is more important.  So I sat down and explained to him why we need to learn multiplication, where all its used, ans how it makes our life easy. Well, all that was pretty easy for both of us.

Teaching  tables of 2 and  10 was easy. As the jump by 2 and 10 was easy to memorize.

Then came table of 5. Gawddddddd !!!  There , I saw my child mentally adding up numbers…. fast!

Now thats fine as long as one has to recite the tables in the sing song way, but not when one has to use it randomly which is the main idea of learning tables.

SO I searched the internet and came across a few songs a few methods, which sadly did not work with my child. He continued to quickly mentally add to get the tables.

After a lot of thinking, I made a game for him using the egg box, but that did not work as well. Egg case works only to test the knowledge, not before.

You know, for anything to remember, I have found that the brain finds the easiest way possible. And after that its very difficult to undo that way of learning for that particular topic.

Like in tables, of you learn in the usual way of reciting, the brain expects only this form of memorizing and refuses to learn in any other way.

SO what is the best way to learn the tables????

Try it reverse and random from the start. 🙂

Start by

5 x 12 = 60

5 x 11 = 55

Show the picture of these when teaching. And ask the child to repeat after you loudly.

Then make your kid write it in reverse order saying each word loudly.

Then ask the easier once randomly. eg   5 x 11 = 55,           5 x 1= 5,       5 x 10 = 50,

Once these three are done,

ask alternately, eg   5 x 12 = 60 ,  5  x 8 = 40,   5 x 6 = 30,   5 x 4 = 20,   5 x 2 = 10

and then take the odd series; eg  5 x 9 = ,  5 x 7 = etc

Make you child write the whole equation again in the alternate fashion.

Then in the last, ask your kids randomly and fast ensuring you do not give the child to add or think.

Make it a fun thing. Ask when least expected, like driving or when you see two numbers in the mall. Lift is great place to quiz using the number buttons.

Try it, it works 🙂

And the by product of it , my younger son, who is in UKg has memorized a few random multiplication equations and blurts out happily .

I at times use www.wolfram.com to help me out.