My Best $8 Parenting Purchase

9×9 was always my favorite too 😍

I have had one of these up for years but with a chart. I just got a multiplication wooden toy from maisonette for Christmas. I knew my daughter would love it. She practices math in her spare time so it was a hit. It’s too tiny for small toddlers or babies to be around but for older kids, it’s a tactile version of the poster.

I am a WHIZ at my times tables because I cheated in 3rd grade (this would be. . . 1971?), holding a literal cheat sheet in my lap when the teacher started the drill. Relieved, I told my older sister. . . WHO TOLD MY MOM, a math lover and chemistry major (in the 50s, people. Hard core). As a result, I spent several months coming home after school and practicing my times tables with Mom, until they were completely tattooed in my brain–as was a multi-faceted lesson about a. cheating, b. telling my sister about it, and 3. the joys of stone-cold memorization!

What a fantastic memory Anton has :)

When my daughter was learning her times tables, my husband developed an app to make it more fun for her – he created a reward system where she could collect little creatures we called Squeebles, as well as earning turns on a mini-game for correct answers. It was around the time when apps were first taking off – he put it in the app store not really expecting much, but twelve years later, creating educational apps is now our full time business. If you’re interested, you can find us here: http://www.keystagefun.co.uk (we’re based in the UK, but most of our apps have an option for UK/US english), and we actually released a brand new times tables app a few weeks ago: https://keystagefun.co.uk/connect/

Florence x

My nephew’s teacher (third grade) told the class to “not freak out” about multiplication and then walk down the rows
– 1s are easy …
– 2s are too
– 10 is a breeze and you can do 5s too
– the trick with nines is that it always adds to nine

Boom half your table up to 10 is DONE.

Also the language “don’t freak out” was memorable enough for my nephew to actually report it at home. (Win!) the teacher seems like a gem.

My daughter learned so much just from watching Numberblocks. She’s in second grade and multiplication is easy for her because of that show.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/arts/television/schoolhouse-rock-50th-anniversary.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Television
Big vote for Schoolhouse Rock (50th anniversary! Story linked). My kids are grown but still know all the songs. I grew up with them as part of The Electric Co on PBS. Sharing them was a huge treat :)

Last year when I had more than one kid regularly spiraling out from emotional overwhelm. I put up a small but eye-catching “emotion wheel” picture in the bathroom by the sink, and honestly I think it has helped everyone name their emotions a little better (including me and my husband).

https://www.etsy.com/listing/868347120/emotion-wheel-print?ref=yr_purchases

I am a substitute teacher for grades kindergarten through eighth grade and I see first-hand how important it is to learn your multiplication facts. EVERYTHING is based on this knowledge as you go through all the different mathematic disciplines in the decade to come. Good job giving them a helpful tool. My kids used to practice with flashcards on long car rides. We always reviewed quickly during the summers, even into high school. Made all the difference!

Prepare to blow your kids’ minds with this trick for the 9s!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEIeFV4oMp4

This is brilliant! We’ve had really good luck with mathigon.org!

My parents posted poems in the bathroom and I memorized them just via routine bathroom use. I want to do the same with my kids once they can read!

Love this game as a fun way to practice- it has great visuals too! https://www.joyfulmathematics.com/multi

I never learned my 9’s. I’ll never forget my dad showing me this trick when I was learning to multiply and I still do it to this day: hold both hands in front of you, palms facing you. Say you need to multiply 9 x 4. Put down your 4th finger and now you have 3 on one side and 6 on the other side of the finger. 9 x 4 = 36.

mi mom wrote these out, im an artist but also good/ok w math she made mini posters and displayed our small apartment wish i still had them or had a photo of them! one sheet per sheet. i was an early reader (at 5) and knew multiplication by 2nd grade. no big story here of college scholarships or math career lol only i have great visual memory and turned out to be a graphic artist 😅❤️

I’m a teacher and they sell placemats like this at teacher supply stores. My kids ate with these every night. They knew all their letters and sounds, math facts, and could fill out a blank United States map at a really young age. The other thing I did was laminate theme park maps and vacation maps whenever we went somewhere fun and used them for placemats. We used these for years! My kids loved them

Anton, 9×9 was my favorite too 😄

It’s nice to see that my 4th grader isn’t alone with the struggle to memorize the multiplication tables. He spends *forever* on the toilet, so I’m ordering those posters now. Also, they make a 12×12 pop it with the multiplication tables, too! Multiplication Table Multiplication Chart Pop Fidget Toys Counting Popper Board Stress Reliever Gifts for Kids Adult ADHD Family Kids Popping Game to Practice Times Math Ability Early Education(12×12) https://a.co/d/aLnXkD4

This is cool! I love seeing families support kids in their learning! I’m curious to know what role folks feel parents are responsible to play in academic learning? I’m a parent and an educator, and I actually love letting my kids academic learning happen at school, with their teachers, and try not to let it spill into our home environment too much (like many educators that I know, I’m anti-hw). I homeschooled one of my kids for a year of the pandemic (which was a ginormous privilege) and was elated when I could return to just being his mom, and let his teacher take the wheel on math and reading. I’ll be here for backup if the school has significant academic concerns! I know every kid is different and also every caregiver has a different capacity to give. I’m so curious to know if most folks consider it a parental role to teach kids math, reading, writing, etc? I think I have other things I’m so focused on teaching my kids (family citizenship, emotional regulation, etc) so I love knowing that I can take the pressure off myself when it comes to things like math facts! It’s also just ok with me if my kids aren’t great at that stuff – I was raised with lots of academic pressure and don’t place the same value on it with my kids. I see lots of different perspectives here and bet this is really informed by social identities like race, class, immigration history, etc too. So interesting!

Your kiddos are probably too old/cool but OMG numberblocks?!????!! It’s a weird British show that makes numbers make sense. My preschooler wows people with his knowledge of math and honestly I’ve learned a ton about how to think of numbers in a new way.

Wow! I never thought we’d be here on Cup of Jo but I’m so thrilled. I’m a former teacher and current teacher coach and I’m intensely passionate about elementary Math education. Kudos to a thread earlier on that reassured everyone that memorization is not everything, and that understanding concepts and patterns between numbers is so hugely important for really getting the big picture and building the foundations for higher level math. Also, @Joanna Goddard it is INCREDIBLE that you called out the visual math that is happening in schools now! Someone mentioned Jo Boaler… she is a leader in this area and she has amazing info and resources! I’m glad it’s happening in NY schools… it’s been hard to get teachers really on board where I am. I have so, so much more to say but I’ll stop there!

We did something similar this summer. I realized my kids didn’t have our address our phone numbers memorized, and they should (9 and a special needs 12)! So I made a poster with the information and taped it across from the toilet. Nothing like a captive audience!

My mom put a copy of Our Bodies Ourselves in the bathroom so her kids could peruse in private. Highly recommend.

One fun fact about me is that I recite the times tables in my head when I can’t fall asleep.

So smart!

When my niece was in college, she was appalled by her own lack of geography knowledge. One map of the world shower curtain later, her problem was solved.