Teaching multiplication facts - help please

[lzp11]

We are steadily working on addition facts and getting there with the help of a range of apps.  So, now I'm looking ahead and wanting to start gathering materials and planning for teaching multiplication facts.  What has everyone used successfully (or not)?  I'd love to hear a range of different resources that suit different kids!

Thank you 

[Kerileanne99]

I absolutely loved doing the more RB pictures and stories from www.multiplication.com.
Alex was just about to turn 3, so we read the story associated with the fact and she 'took a picture of the card with her mental camera.' She learned them in about a month to suprise Daddy for Xmas last year.
Too cute. Each number is assigned a different personality first: 2-shoe, 3-tree, 4-floor, 5-hive, 6-sticks, 7-surfin', 8-skate, 9-sign. Then the silly stories relate them.
In the beginning the kids use the stories as a prop to remember, but eventually they don't need them as much, if at all.
Here is a video of Alex writing some of them out-you can hear her using the 'clues'.
http://youtu.be/rv6Vbihko8o

Of course, we did lots of preliminary work to make sure she understood what it was she was actually doing:)
Lakeshore has a very useful manipulative I used because it was ready-made, but you could easily make something similar yourself:
Honestly, I think her understanding of multiplication came very quickly because of the living math books we read. We read at least one living math book every night as part of her bedtime reading as it really creates a love an interest in math concepts that she would not otherwise see for years! Last week we had a Fibonacci nature hunt sparked by one such book. Her favorite (and mine!) for understanding multiplication was called:
Amanda Bean's Amazing Dream. I will link it for you.
http://www.amazon.com/Amanda-Beans-Amazing-Marilyn-Brainy/dp/0590300121/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383311219&sr=1-1&keywords=amanda+bean%27s+amazing+dream

Of course, we also did skip counting. I either made up songs or altered some of the Classical Conversations skip-counting songs. Hint: if you want to use these, the CC app is only $10 instead of purchasing the $40 CD and materials!
I partnered the songs with some really fun skip-counting bracelets made by a teacher, called Math Bands. A separate bracelet for each set of numbers. She wore each one as we learned the song. They are cheap, about $11?
https://sites.google.com/site/learninstylemathbands/

I also remember that she really liked to do some free skip-counting mazes I printed off from Confessions of a Homeschooler:
http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2012/07/skip-counting-mazes.html

I will say that I taught simple division right along with the multiplication, and also added to the cards from multiplication.com the symbols for squaring a number and taking the square root as it seems to make sense, and I am SO glad I did. I think it really helped her understand, and it is much more automatic in her mind...with no extra work!
When you get to the point where you are practicing the facts, take a look at a game called '60-second sweep'. You can find videos on YouTube to encourage the kids to go faster and faster!

Then lots of games, apps, etc. I am sure I can post some of our favorites if you like:)

[GodLovesYou]

Kerileanne99,
Awesome response. It was super helpful. I knew I read someone on here who had a child who learned Multiplication tables for her daddy's birthday through an online program, and I just didn't know how to find the links and info about it again. Great read and wonderful info!! Many Thanks.

[Skylark]

Those were great suggestions from Keri!

To add, we do a lot of physical activities for math, combining exercise and math. (3 little ones to keep busy and happy  )

What really helped me is to have math songs that I can use as a theme song for an activity.

There are a few available out there. The ones I will definitely recommend are

Math with Mar  --   http://musicwithmar.com/store/index.php?route=product/category&path=48

some of the Twin Sisters Math music are ok too, but not as good as Math with Mar

Music and rhyme make things easy to remember and fun to practice.

[lzp11]

Thank you Keri - very helpful and informative as always!

And thanks also Skylark - we love music for learning 

[early learning17]

Wow, thank for all the recommendations, Keri and Skylark!
Have just checked out Classical conversations app. Here in Europe there is only Cycle 1, Cycle 2 and Memory Foundation on offer. In the description of each of those it says it teaches the multiplication timetable 1-15: does that mean the facts are spread over three apps? or which app exactly offerst the multiplication tables please?

[Kerileanne99]

Early Learning17-
I just have the cycle 1 app so far, but I can give you an idea of what is on it. It is divided into topics, so I will keep it to math. This app does not specifically go through multiplication facts, but focuses on skip counting in great detail! So songs for skip counting by 2-15...then skip counting by squares and cubes. I actually taught basic skip counting by say 2, 3, 5, 10 and then Alex learned all of her multiplication facts. It wasn't until later that we went back, mostly for fun, to learn all the rest. However, it is really nice if she forgets a fact or needs to figure out more complicated multiplication mentally to have the skip counting to fall back on. I know some really believe that all skip counting should be mastered first, but I found that as long as she understood clearly what exactly she was doing as far as multiplying, she learned the math facts faster. Otherwise, it seemed she would get lazy and want to skip count rather than think to remember the answer

Other things in the math section of cycle 1: conversions, basic geometry equations for things like area of rectangle/circle, Pythagorean thereom, area, circumference, etc.
And that is just the math section!

I do have to say, I personally think many of the skip-counting songs for CC are dreadful
I tried to stay fairly close to them as we may do CC next year (maybe), but I found we had to either slightly add our own flair or beat a table drum, something to add a spark to peg in her memory...and be advised that so e of the songs that are used for the 'tune' are specific songs that are from hymns. I didn't find it a problem to just teach her the melody and go from there, but just for your information.
Oh! We learned these all VERY quickly, and here is how: I wrote all the numbers on the backs of 1/2 of an index card, and laid them out on the table in a line. We then sang the song, with Alex pointing to each number as she said it. After a couple of times I took away (or allowed her to do it as she found it hilarious) a couple of the cards randomly. Sing again, take away a couple more, until voila! Literally learned in minutes. Review the next day, learn another set or two. We then reviewed them all a couple of times that week driving in the car, but there was really not too much more work to be done.
One nice thing about the app is that as the skip-counting song plays, the string of numbers appears on the IPad if you want to only do it from there.
If you guys simply want to know which songs they used for which numbers, and like my card method to try, I am sure I can type out the list here....

[GodLovesYou]

Skylark mentioned exercise and math and I'm just wondering if anyone has tried Can do kids dvd's and what do you think of it? I found it a while ago and was considering purchasing it. Here's a post about it and a clip to what's in the video. http://thehomeschoolmagazine.com/Homeschool_Reviews/4862.php
 and http://www.candokids.com/  Has anyone heard of it or tried it?

[GodLovesYou]

On another note, my little one is 19months and we've been working heavily on counting. We use lots of videos and songs. He was doing well counting to 20 and then all of the sudden I started showing him regularly skip counting videos and he started counting, 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and up skipping 3,4,5. Only in the past couple of days has he counted objects and actually called them 1, 2, 3, and 4. But he still sometimes reverts to 1,2,6,7, etc. I'm kind of concerned about going back to teaching skip counting at the same time we are mastering counting. Is it something, I should hold off on? Or should I just keep teaching both regular counting and skip counting and figure it will eventually all come together?

[Mandabplus3]

Personally I think you can teach counting strongly first and then once the basic understanding of counting is there then teach skip counting.
That doesn't mean you can't expose your child to skip counting sooner but until counting is strong I wouldn't expect your child to repeat a skip counting sequence. Getting strong on counting takes quite a bit of repetition and practice. Once they have it they will learn skip counting much quicker.

[Korrale4kq]

Counting is my son's weakest math skill. I agree about mastering counting by 1s before skip counting.
Something that I should note. I never taught my son to count above 20. I taught him 0-20 backwards and forwards. He was able to figure out how to count any number beyond that by learning the pattern. Once he had mastered counting to 20, I next was able to teach him skip counting by 10s. A Hundreds chart helped a lot. Next it was skip counting by 5s. Using all the family members hands and feet, and tally sticks helped wiifh that. And next we taught skip counting by 2s as we focused on parity. By making those association I think it did help with decreasing any confusion. Coins can help with skip counting also.

[GodLovesYou]

Mandabplus3 and Korrale4kq, thank you guys so much. That's a huge help. I've been going back and forth in my mind what to do. We'll stay with the counting alone for a while.  And, Korrale4kq, thanks for all of the details. We got Splash Math K because of one of your other posts and I've been scouring over the other things you've been teaching your little one, too. I haven't had much success at finding the Number Crew stuff. Can you buy it somewhere or how did you find it?  Like your little one, mine is much weaker in Math. He's amazing at reading, but math isn't coming as quickly.  Although, I guess I don't know who I'm comparing him to on math at 19 months. Also, guys, I'm wondering what will constitute mastery before I expose him to skip counting. Right now he is touching items and counting them. I'm assuming once he can touch and count up to 20 on different items, he's got it. I just don't want to go back too quickly to skip counting, until I know he won't revert to weird counting behaviors!

[Skylark]

We do not show many cartoons at all in our house, but I would definitely recommend Number Crew. They are full of counting and math activities.

We got the whole series with 1 year subscription to Discovery Education http://www.discoveryeducation.com/ ( and there is a download option there, if you do not want to watch online, which worked excellently for us, because of the internet connection).

I made a summary what each episode is about, what songs and math concepts are introduced and each and a summary of games and hands on activities we've done to correspond with each episode. I primarily done it for myself to keep our activities organised and also to have a record so we can do them again with my youngest. If it is something of interest I can share those.

[Korrale4kq]

We also access number crew from Discovery Streaming.

As for counting there is a lot to do to meet mastery. I am just going to list those things. Just ask and I will explain anything if you need more detail. The things listed below don't need to be taught in the order I have stated. My son learnt subitizing, numerals, counting backwards and forwards and then counting on. Cardinality and bijection he learnt last. Which may be attributed to his counting weakness. But he is strong in all other Math areas.

Counting backwards and forwards
Counting on
Cardinality
Bijection
Numeral association

Bonus things to know for number sense.
Ordinality
Parity

Then the rest of early math is all concepts. Shapes, measure, comparisons, locations.

At 19 months you have a choice in how you wish to teach arithmetic. You can teach if after all the other math stuff has been mastered, or at least a child has become familiar  with a lot of it. This is a manipulative heavy approach. Or you can teach arithmetic right after a child knows numerals and how to count.

[Skylark]

Here I posted some of the activities we do using Number Crew Videos as springboard. But you can do all those activities on their own - counting and cardinality. http://earlyeducationessentials.com/learning-math-concepts-with-the-number-crew/ Let me know if it is useful and if anyone will appreciate me sharing some more of our activities. We use ideas from Marshmallow Math, various other sources and lots of inspiration.

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