One of the many questions I get asked these days when speaking with parents is, “How do I help my child learn math facts?”. I love this question. There are many ways to help your child develop their math fact fluency. Fluency refers to automaticity, perfect, instant recall.
Teaching math facts can be done daily and in just a few minutes! Here are some ideas that will help you work with your student learn those addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts.
Dice Game: Grab a pair of dice. Have your child roll the 2 dice and add (or subtract) the numbers up! Each time he gets the correct answer he gets a point. The one who gets the most points wins!
Playing Cards: use your traditional playing cards and divide the deck of cards into 2 piles. You and your child will play by throwing down two cards each at a time. You both add, subtract, multiply your cards. The one with the highest answer wins! You grab all four cards and deal again! The one with the most cards wins!
Tic Tac Toe Fact Fun! Grab a deck of math fact flashcards (addition, subtraction, multiplication and or division). Your child must answer the math fact before putting on X or O on the board. The first person to get tic tac toe wins!
Math Fact Book: Use your math fact flashcards. Try to select one card a day and have your child create a story for that card. Your younger child (2nd grader) can select a 15-8 flashcard. She can create a story about how she had 15 balloons at a party and 8 flew away. How many did she have left. She can write and illustrate this in her math fact journal! This can also be implemented for your older student using a division or multiplication story!
The overall goal is for students to be fluent with their math facts but to practice these math facts in a fun and interactive way!
Does your child need help with Math? Visit our Mathematics Tutoring Page!