Practicing Multiplication & Division Facts at Home - Ways to Support Your Child!

Students have been assigned the homework task of practicing their multiplication and related division facts.  A good recall and understanding of multiplication and division facts is extremely important in all areas of mathematics. The expectation for grade 4 students is to learn multiplication facts up to 10 x 10 and related division facts. The expectation in grade 5 is to learn multiplication facts up to 12 x 12 and related division facts. 

In order to help you support your child at home in mastering their math facts, I thought I would share a few ideas with you. By all means, if you do something at home to support your child in this area, that I have not mentioned here, please post a comment and share your idea!

• Fact Family Cards for multiplication and division. You can easily make these at home. Fact families are simply 3 numbers that are related to make a set of math facts (e.g. 3, 4, 12 are a fact family.  There are 4 related facts: 3 x 4 = 12, 4, x, 3 = 12, 12 ÷3 = 4, 12 ÷4 = 3).  Write up EACH fact family on a set of cards. You can cut out the fact family cards in various 2D shapes and play games with them.... 
• Math Toss - Toss a ball around a room or outside and as you toss, call out a math fact...the goal is for your child to say the correct answer before catching the ball. If your child prefers soccer, you can do 'math kick' instead.   
• Flash Cards - you can purchase multiplicaiton and division flash cards at any dollar store or at Scholar's choice. You can also make your own using recipe cards or cardstock. There are many ways to use flashcards. Check out this website for some tips: https://magoosh.com/math/6-tips-using-math-flashcards-child/
• Oral Practice - You can do this while driving around in your car, making dinner, eating breakfast in the morning, etc. Ask your child the facts in order at first and when then get really good, mix up the order. Start with the facts that they know best in order to build their confidence.  If your child has siblings at home that are old enough, get them to pratice together! Turn it into a game and make it fun! 
• 'Fact of the Day' - If your child is having trouble with only a few facts, do a fact of the day to help them master the ones they are struggling with. 
• Computer Games/Apps - There are many out there that will enable your child to practice their math facts. A simple searh will turn up many choices. 
• Worksheets - Straight up pencil and paper practice is always helpful. See the links on the left side of the blog. You can make worksheets more fun by setting a timer and turning it into a game.