times tables

[yoyo123]

with numbers over 10 eg 13 do 10x and 3x then add.

[mystery]

Is that all that Katel meant? Or did this girl learn up to 15x15 off by heart to the point where she could do instant recall randomly, and use it to do division too?

[katel]

That's what I meant. She learnt her tables with quick recall up to 15 times 15. So she knew 14 times 13, for example as well as 7 times 8. I'm not saying that this is necessary for everyone - if you have a mathematical brain and can break the bigger numbers down into smaller sums reliably then that's fine. But for someone like my dd, who panics at the sight of numbers bigger than 10 it was a godsend.

[menagerie]

Katel, how did she go about it? It would be great to hear what methods you used.

Yesterday DS2 and I worked on 7x table and he knew them off by heart, even at bedtime. Today his answer to 7x7 was 36. I'm not sure how to progress from there.

Both DSs comment how dull times tables are. I can't find a way to make them more fun. Even the games like Granny Prix don't make much difference.

We've not bought tapes yet. Any recommendations on which tapes/CDs to buy to play in the car. they begged not Percy as they have him at school but any other tips would be welcome. I have no idea how to get these tables into their long term memory before the summer is out, but that's the plan...

[maznaq]

kumon really helped my daughter to learn her tables & she does them very quick!

[xyzzy]

That's what I meant. She learnt her tables with quick recall up to 15 times 15. So she knew 14 times 13.

To what end? The only reason we traditionally learn times tables up to 12 is because you used to need them for working with inches and pence. For any other purpose, 10 is the logical point to stop. Otherwise why 15 and not 16 (extremely useful if you go into some parts of computing, as you can then multiply in hexadecimal) or 23 or 51? Of all the things I can imagine being useful to know (I have powers of 2 up to 16 by heart, and squares and cubes less than a thousand, both of which I use intermittently, and I used to know log10(x) for integers 1 to 9) the 14 times table would rank pretty low on the list...

[menagerie]

Has anyone tried the MP3 download Hip-hop, Reggae and Pop times tables? I was thinking of getting it for the drive down to Cornwall. At least the beat is varied. It's almost humorous with a rock singer crooning the six times table as if it had broken his heart.

But does it drive you nuts?

Reddeb - I now can't find the link you sent me. It's not in my PMs or my email inbox. If you see this and it's not too much trouble I'd be ever so grateful if you resent it as I was going to download it for the boys to look at next week. Thank you.