Support your child with the times tables

Creative Resources for primary children| Education| 11+

June 26, 2024•2 min read

Times tables have always been one of the key subjects that I work on with, specifically primary aged children, but also secondary school children, and often the parents say they’re awful at them as well…

I don’t suggest learning them in chronological order.

If you do, you’ll hit some of the much harder ones before you get to some of the easier ones.

Instead, what I suggest (and you’ve probably heard me say this before) is that you start with the 10’s, 11’s, 2’s and 5’s as they do in school.

Then deviate across to the 9’s as there are so many tricks to help you to learn them.

Then the 6’s or 7’s. Crazy I know! But they are quite simple if you split them so that 6x8 becomes: 5x8 + 1x8 = 50+8 Or 7x8 becomes 5x8 + 2x8 = 40 +16 = 56.

From there you can pretty much work in any order.

The 12’s is also straight forward as we can split it into 10x + 2x which would give us the same answer as 12x.

There are more suggestions on the times tables over in the Clara James Approach, or I have a sequence of emails which sends out once a month with suggestions on how to learn each of the times tables with some resources. If it would help, the link is here: Support your child with their times tables - The fun way! (sendfox.com)

2 games we play a lot and I mention in other posts are:

Jenga

On each brick write a number.

Decide which times table you are multiplying by, then as you pull the brick out multiply the number on the brick by your chosen times table. The person who makes the tower fall, looses.

I hope that’s helpful and not just waffle.

Noughts and Crosses

I love this game because it's quick, easy, and doesn't cost anything.

Draw a noughts and crosses grid (two horizontal lines crossed by 2 vertical ones). In each square write a number from 1 to 12. In order to claim your square you need to multiply the number written there by your chosen times table.

The first person to get a line of 3 wins.

Like I say if there is anything specific you would like us to focus on, please do give me a shout, in the meantime, enjoy the games!

Dawn Strachan

For the past 20+ years I have been a firm believer that learning should be an enjoyable experience. I appreciate that traditionally education has revolved around worksheets, textbooks, listening to teachers. But a grounding in early years and working with children who had a variety of learning styles from I learned that it is an individual activity that is personal to all of us. We don’t all learn in the same way. Our influences, our experiences, our capabilities all influence how we retain information. But through it all, I believe that if we can make it enjoyable and engaging, they will want to participate. With participation comes practice which in turn boosts skill and confidence. With an increase in skill and confidence comes a willingness to have a go. This in turn leads to more practice which leads to a positive spiral of success. The moral, we need to make learning fun, engaging, use a range of techniques.

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