Math Game Monday: Salute

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Help children review times-table facts while they practice the inverse relationship between multiplication and division.

Salute may be the only game in my books where speed is a factor. Players should be closely matched in their skill level — or use the House Rule that calls for taking turns.

“Salute” is an excerpt from Multiplication & Fractions: Math Games for Tough Topics, available as an ebook at my bookstore (Thank you for cutting out the middleman!) and in ebook or paperback through many online retailers. Read more about my playful math books here.

The Math Game Monday posts will be available for one week only. If you missed this one, explore the Topic Tag links in the sidebar. There are more than forty free games scattered around the blog. Have fun playing math with your kids!

Only Three Facts to Memorize

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

A comment from a friend got me playing around with multiplication. I found a few videos from some of my favorite math people, so I’ll be sharing over the next few days.

Here’s one from Sonya Post of Learning Well at Home. Also, Sonya just hosted Playful Math Education Carnival #143, which is well worth your time to explore!

Did your device hide the video? Find it on YouTube here.

“When students have to drill multiplication facts, it’s frustrating, unproductive and it makes them hate math. A better way to master the multiplication table is work on the skills that allow students to multiply quickly and efficiently.”

—Sonya Post, Why We Don’t Drill Multiplication Facts – What We Do Instead

Doubling and Halving

Making doubles and halves are a great foundation for all sorts of math.

Do you ever play the doubling game with your children? One player picks a starting number, and then you take turns doubling it until your mental math skills run out. How far can you go?

Or try the halving game: One player chooses a starting number, and you take turns cutting it in half. How tiny can you go?

As Sonya demonstrated, these skills help your child master their multiplication facts. And they are fantastic preparation for exponents and logarithms, too!

Memorizing the Math Facts

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Central City Times Tables[Photo by dsb nola via flickr.]

The most effective and powerful way I’ve found to commit math facts to memory is to try to understand why they’re true in as many ways as possible. It’s a very slow process, but the fact becomes permanently lodged, and I usually learn a lot of surrounding information as well that helps me use it more effectively.
…
Actually, a close friend of mine describes this same experience: he couldn’t learn his times tables in elementary school and used to think he was dumb. Meanwhile, he was forced to rely on actually thinking about number relationships and properties of operations in order to do his schoolwork. (E.g. I can’t remember 9×5, but I know 8×5 is half of 8×10, which is 80, so 8×5 must be 40, and 9×5 is one more 5, so 45. This is how he got through school.) Later, he figured out that all this hard work had actually given him a leg up because he understood numbers better than other folks. He majored in math in college and is now a cancer researcher who deals with a lot of statistics.

— Ben Blum-Smith
Comment on Math Mama’s post What must be memorized?

The entire discussion (article and comments) is well worth reading:

You may also enjoy:

Quotable: Learning the Math Facts

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

feature photo above by USAG- Humphreys via flickr (CC BY 2.0)

During off-times, at a long stoplight or in grocery store line, when the kids are restless and ready to argue for the sake of argument, I invite them to play the numbers game.

“Can you tell me how to get to twelve?”

My five year old begins, “You could take two fives and add a two.”

“Take sixty and divide it into five parts,” my nearly-seven year old says.

“You could do two tens and then take away a five and a three,” my younger son adds.

Eventually we run out of options and they begin naming numbers. It’s a simple game that builds up computational fluency, flexible thinking and number sense. I never say, “Can you tell me the transitive properties of numbers?” However, they are understanding that they can play with numbers.

…

photo by Mike Baird via flickr
photo by Mike Baird via flickr

I didn’t learn the rules of baseball by filling out a packet on baseball facts. Nobody held out a flash card where, in isolation, I recited someone else’s definition of the Infield Fly Rule. I didn’t memorize the rules of balls, strikes, and how to get someone out through a catechism of recitation.

Instead, I played baseball.

— John Spencer
Memorizing Math Facts

Conversational Math

The best way for children to build mathematical fluency is through conversation. For more ideas on discussion-based math, check out these posts:

Learning the Math Facts

For more help with learning and practicing the basic arithmetic facts, try these tips and math games:

How to Conquer the Times Table, Part 5

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Photo of Lex times 11, by Dan DeChiaro, via flickr.

We are finishing up an experiment in mental math, using the world’s oldest interactive game — conversation — to explore multiplication patterns while memorizing as little as possible.

Take your time to fix each of these patterns in mind. Ask questions of your student, and let her quiz you, too. Discuss a variety of ways to find each answer. Use the card game Once Through the Deck (explained in part 3)as a quick method to test your memory. When you feel comfortable with each number pattern, when you are able to apply it to most of the numbers you and your child can think of, then mark off that row and column on your times table chart.

So far, we have studied the times-1 and times-10 families and the Commutative Property (that you can multiply numbers in any order). Then we memorized the doubles and mastered the facts built on them. And then last time we worked on the square numbers and their next-door neighbors.

Continue reading How to Conquer the Times Table, Part 5

How to Conquer the Times Table, Part 4

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Photo of Miss Karen (and computer) times 3, by Karen, via flickr.

If you remember, we are in the middle of an experiment in mental math. We are using the world’s oldest interactive game — conversation — to explore multiplication patterns while memorizing as little as possible. So far, we have studied the times-1 and times-10 families and the Commutative Property (that you can multiply numbers in any order). Then we memorized the doubles and mastered the facts built on them.

Continue reading How to Conquer the Times Table, Part 4

How to Conquer the Times Table, Part 3

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Photo of Javier times 4, by Javier Ignacio Acuña Ditzel, via flickr.

If you remember, we are in the middle of an experiment in mental math. We are using the world’s oldest interactive game — conversation — to explore multiplication patterns while memorizing as little as possible. Talk through these patterns with your student. Work many, many, many oral math problems together. Discuss the different ways you can find each answer, and notice how the number patterns connect to each other.

So far, we have mastered the times-1 and times-10 families and the Commutative Property (that you can multiply numbers in any order).

Continue reading How to Conquer the Times Table, Part 3

How to Conquer the Times Table, Part 2

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Photo of Eeva times 6, by Eric Horst, via flickr.

The question is common on parenting forums:

My daughter is in 4th grade. She has been studying multiplication in school for nearly a year, but she still stumbles over the facts and counts on her fingers. How can I help her?

Many people resort to flashcards and worksheets in such situations, and computer games that flash the math facts are quite popular with parents. I recommend a different approach: Challenge your student to a joint experiment in mental math. Over the next two months, without flashcards or memory drill, how many math facts can the two of you learn together?

We will use the world’s oldest interactive game — conversation — to explore multiplication patterns while memorizing as little as possible.

Continue reading How to Conquer the Times Table, Part 2

How to Conquer the Times Table, Part 1

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Photo of Evil Erin times 5 (and dog times 2), via flickr.

Perhaps the biggest challenge for any middle-elementary math student is to master the multiplication facts. It can seem like an unending task to memorize so many facts and be able to pull them out of mental storage in any order on demand. Too often, the rote aspect of such memory work overwhelms students, eclipsing their view of the principles behind the math. Yet rote memory is not enough: A student may be able to recite the times tables perfectly and still be reduced to counting on fingers in the middle of a long division problem.

We will use the world’s oldest interactive game — conversation — to learn the multiplication facts one bite at a time. But first, let’s take some time to think about what multiplication really means.

Continue reading How to Conquer the Times Table, Part 1

Game: Times Tac Toe

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Photo by jma.work via flickr.

I’ve been working on a book of math games for homeschoolers and other teachers. I hope to get it published later this year, but the editing drags on. Would anybody like to draw the illustrations?

Meanwhile, here’s a 2-player game your students may enjoy…

Set Up

Print out a blank times table chart and place it between the players. Each player will need a colored marker, and the colors must be different enough to be easily distinguished.

Remove the jokers and kings from a deck of poker-style playing cards, but leave the jacks (= 11) and queens (= 12). Shuffle the deck, and place the stack face down as a draw pile.

Continue reading Game: Times Tac Toe