Hi again!
I guess I am feeling especially chatty today :-0. Anyway, I have been working with darling youngest child on mastering multiplication, and although it's progressing ok..we just seem to be stuck on the actual memorizing of the multiplication table. I have to give myself a reality check every so often because the same work was so easy for my oldest child to learn, but I KNOW that my youngest learns completely different. He struggles with memorizing the multiplication tables, but can already do easy algebraic problems where he needs to solve for x in simple equations (ok...makes sense right?), Geometry concepts...not a problem, but memorizing tables...ugh!
Well, I finally figured it out after many weeks of banging my head against the wall...my darling youngster was staging a stand-off (unintentional of course) against memorizing the table (think the Alamo :-) ). It wasn't that he didn't understand the concept (he can tell you the answers to the easier parts of the table just fine), he didn't want to take the time to memorize the more difficult parts of the table!
So to make a long story longer ;-), I did some handy dandy research to figure out if there was anything out there that might help us overcome this hurdle, and I'm happy to report: yes there is, as a matter of fact I found two really great resources!
The first resource is the TimesTales system from Trigger Memory System. This system teaches the difficult times table in a fun story. I had ordered this system for my oldest child, but she learned her tables so quickly, I never had a chance to use it (to be honest I forgot I had it). I was reorganizing the room where we homeschool and lo and behold I found it! I figured, "why not", and decided to try it out. Oh my goodness...my youngster loved the story and I was amazed at how much he actually retained! Praises! To check out the TimesTales system, click here
The other find that I think is truly a gem is a series of videos on youtube called Right Brain Math. Here is a sample video:
I'm going to give that video one a shot with my oldest. He's struggling at memorizing them. He's got those memorized that rhyme (6 times 6 equals Thir-ty-six, you get the idea), but anything higher than five multiples and he struggles if it doesn't rhyme.
ReplyDeleteWow - brilliant!
ReplyDeleteI struggled with multiplication (and am SO right brained it's not funny). My oldest "gets" maths without being shown a lot of the time, the younger one doesn't and is very similar to me, so this video will be a huge help. Going to his website right now. (I did an intensive 8 weeks of multiplication and division with her last year which she promptly forgot after CHristmas holidays!)