How to have your kid not suck at math

Today, we’ll be focusing on the joys of learning multiplication! What felt like eons ago, I learned my multiplication tables for the first time. Over my academic career, as more knowledge went in, more multiplication table recall went out.

Let’s check out some activities you can do with your kids to stop the forgetting and, dare I say, make math fun.

Activities:

Multiplication War
Get a deck of cards and sit across from your kid(s). Everyone flips two cards. Have everyone multiply their own cards, and whoever has the highest product wins!

Multiplication — Back2Back!
Two kids stand back to back and each write a factor on the board (neither one can see what the other person wrote. Have a “caller” announce the product. The two kids standing back to back now must figure out what the other’s factor was. The winner stays and another classmate takes the loser’s place.

Multiplication Bingo
Create Bingo sheets with times tables answers on them. Call out multiplication problems, like 6x4, so the kids have to figure out what the answer is. (Pro tip: you can even have them make their own sheets!)

Things to remember:

Start small
Pushing larger numbers too quickly causes confusion and frustration. Work up to them gradually to make learning multiplication seem easier. As they work their way up to the bigger numbers, remind them that they already learned some of them! (9x4 might seem new, but they learned 4x9 last week!)

Little and often goes a long way
As with any type of learning, you don’t want to push your kid so hard that they get burnt out or develop a strong loathing for the subject matter. Taking five minutes here and there throughout the day will not only keep your child from being overwhelmed, but it will help build their recall.

Monitor them and heap praise
Praise your child’s work ethic, especially if he or she wasn’t grasping multiplication at first. If they’re going slower than you think they should, it’s okay. Negativity may shut them down and make them more reluctant to try again. Encouragement and recognition for their hard work goes a long way!

App to learn multiplication

If your kid needs help learning multiplication or if you’re looking for an educational app for your child, check out these decks from FactSumo: Multiplying by 3 |Multiplying by 7| Multiplying by 9