Learning in the Absence of Education
Essays on Homeschooling
© Beverley Paine
Index
Homeschool
Australia
More on Learning Times Tables
I was recently asked for advice on how to go about the business of teaching the times tables.
We've tried many things over the years, and I've summarised them briefly below. The one thing to remember is that because we have three children, learning the times tables happened over many years, and I think that made a difference too. The following are not in any order:
- I made up grids 1cm by 1cm of ten by ten and wrote in the numbers 1-100. I then photocopied ten pages and stuck them together in a book. I asked the children (each when ready) to colour in and discover the patterns for each times table - the first page beginning with adding on two to the last number, beginning with two, each time. The result was a chequerboard, of course. One grid a day. By the end of the booklet the kids were amazed at the patterns. Thomas became very interested, and began to just concentrate on number patterns, which completely sidetracked all his table learning from there. Boy, he learns differently from the rest of us.
- Picked up some tables songs and learned them. I even wrote them out and printed them up as a booklet and illustrated it for the children to colour in. I learned the songs too, but I have forgotten them all now! So have the children.
- Periodically I would ask the children to write out the times tables, all ten of them (about once every four years). I had to show them what I meant the first time. The first time Thomas did this, at age nine, he wrote out 1-5 without any problems and enjoyed the task. Roger, who'd never done this before managed all ten, and realised some weak areas. April who didn't listen properly wrote out all twelve, but she'd done it all before.... I found the exercise worth while, because it allayed my fears that I had mathematical dummies on my hands... as if tables were that important anyway...
- Playing with Cuisenairre and Mortensen bricks. Lots of this. Roger and April endured a couple of hundred carefully sequenced Mortensen work books (don't know that it helped, in fact, I am pretty sure it didn't, but they certainly could do the work - even algebra at age six). But the hands on stuff was brilliant. We built towers, and road maps, and patterns, lots of patterns. Lots of coloured bricks.
- Playing with Lego helps too. We have 'onie' bricks, 'twoie' bricks, 'threeie' bricks, 'sixie' and 'eightie' bricks... Everything seems to be in multiples in Lego. Boy, Lego 'multiplied' quickly in this house!
- Displaying a poster of the times tables where it will be seen and read frequently - in most homes this is usually the back of the toilet door!
- Lots of real life practice. Going around the shopping centre and trying to work out if the 375g packet is cheaper per kilogram than the 500g packet. Way over the kids' heads, but doing the mental arithmetic out loud and giving them sub sets of the whole problem to work out really helps. The other day I was trying to work out something, and gave Roger a part of the sum, and Thomas another part. It was tricky because not only did I have to keep the whole in my head and work it out, but I also had to follow their reasoning. All this walking along the road.
- And a friend was worried about her 11 year old and his tables, so she got him to write out one table a day, at the same time Thomas was (this was his motivation). Max learned all twelve in twelve days, and has retained them. Thomas got so involved in the repetitive number patterns he forgot he was learning tables. He thought he was playing with numbers and kept showing me things that were so amazing....
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Excerpt from Learning in the Absence of Home Education: Essays on Homeschooling
© Beverley Paine, 1999
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