Many things have changed over the years in education, but one thing that’s remained constant is the need to learn your times tables. The reason for this, I suppose, is that this knowledge really is something that so many people use in all sorts of situations, every day.

In 4JR this is one of the really important bits of math content that we are addressing. What we are looking for in this case is called, in math terms, automaticity. In other words, memorizing.

We’ll be approaching this in various ways over the coming weeks, but one home-school connection will look like this:

FACT in My Pocket

What this means is that each day each student will be selecting a multiplication/division “fact family” triangle card. They’ll be memorizing the associated equations, choosing one to write a word problem about, and keeping the fact card in their pocket (or bag, or sock or…) for the rest of the day.

At any point that’s not otherwise disruptive other students and teachers are invited to ask them “What’s the fact in your pocket?”, to which the student should answer immediately with both a correct multiplication and division equation from their fact triangle.

If they can’t recall one, they need to take out the triangle, check it, re-memorize it, and put it back in their pocket to be quizzed again later.

Parents! Please quiz your child several times in the evening and help them to return the card to school the following morning so they can add it to their pile of “known equations”.

Additional multiplication and division practice can be easily found online through many of our Math resources page here.

Happy multiplying!