Family Fun With Multiplication Facts

Has your child been asked to practice their math facts at home? Math facts are best learned in a purposeful way that helps students make connections between the facts, as opposed to memorizing them individually. 

Some tips for supporting fact fluency at home: 

1. Practice the facts in a meaningful order.
• start with foundational facts like 2s, 10s, 5s, 1s and 0s 
• move on to more challenging facts that can be found using combinations of foundational facts, like 3s, 4s, 6s, 8s, 9s and 7s
• use this Mastering Math Facts link below to learn strategies to support each group of facts: https://bit.ly/3jZKROQ

2. Help your child see that the order of the factors does not change the product. 
• example: 2 × 5 = 10 and 5 × 2 = 10

3. Help your child practice by decomposing more challenging facts into known facts.
• example one: 7 × 8 can be thought of as (7 × 4) + (7 × 4) 
• example two: 5 × 7 can be thought of as (5 × 5) + (5 × 2)

4. Help your child visualize the facts by building arrays and drawing pictures to represent them. Follow this link for helpful resources: https://mathvisuals.wordpress.com/multiplication-division/.

5. Play games such as:

• Blockout: https://mathforlove.com/lesson/blockout/
• Math Flips: https://mathvisuals.wordpress.com/math-flips/
• Stick and Split: https://www.stickandsplit.com/
  
  6. Allow your child as much time as they need to find an answer for a fact. This will lower the stress and support them with using the strategies they are learning, and they will soon become automatic with practice.