Maths:Times Tables

R has reached the stage where she is fluent in about half her times tables and has discovered (as most people do) that repeating tables infinitum is BORING!  It is something that the National Curriculum in the UK insists that you know how to do in your head and so she was told off for using the fingers trick to work out her nine times table :( , only one thing for it practise, practise, practise...
In order to help her (and to use with A at a later date) we printed off some times tables matching cards.  I got them from here but you could easily make your own.

BTW you do have to register to download the resources but it is (and they are) FREE!  If you have older children and fancy spending an afternoon or evening depleting your printer ink supply check out the hundreds of resources available.  I particularly like those contributed by bevevans22 who is an ICT teacher who specialises in SEN materials age 4-12.

Anyway back to the matching cards. How do we plan to use them? Match the answer with the question.  Snap - one player has the answers the other the questions.  Memory pairs matching game.  Flashcards.  I'm sure we will think of more as time goes on.

N.B. For those who are wondering what the heck I mean by the fingers trick here it is and it works for the nine times table up to 9 x 10.
Hold your hands out in front of you so you can see both hands with your fingers "up".
Imagine that your fingers are numbered 1-10 from left to right.
Fold down the finger that corresponds to the number you want to multiply by nine.
The fingers that remain standing on the left of the "gap" give you the number of 10's in the answer.
The fingers that remain standing from the right give you the units.
for example, assume the sum is 5x9.  With your hands palms down the fifth finger from the left is actually your left thumb so you fold this down.  This leaves you with the first four fingers on your left hand standing so the answer is 40 something, counting from the right you have five fingers standing before the "gap" which gives us five units so the answer is "45".  Magic.