Brushing up on your knowledge of multiplication

Developing a good knowledge of tables up to 12 x 12 can help children in no end of ways.

It will:

• Develop their mental arithmetic skills

• Help them to understand number relationships

• Support them in everyday activities such as shopping and cooking

• Build their knowledge of important mathematical concepts such as fractions, shape, percentages, ratio, proportionality and area, to name but a few.

The National Curriculum states that children need to learn the following in each year of primary school:

• Year 1: count in multiples of 2, 5 and 10

• Year 2: be able to remember and use multiplication and division facts for the 2, 5 and 10 multiplication tables

• Year 3: be able to remember and use multiplication and division facts for the 3, 4 and 8 multiplication tables

• Year 4: be able to remember and use multiplication and division facts for the multiplication tables up to 12 x 12.

As children move through the rest of their time at primary and secondary school, their knowledge of times tables will be relied upon to delve deeper into more complex mathematical problems.

There are so many ways that you can help your child to develop their knowledge of the multiplication tables up to 12 x 12 this summer. Our favourite online resource has to be https://www.transum.org/Tables/Times_Tables.asp which challenges your child to learn a new multiplication table in just 5 days! A set of different online and home activities are prescribed for each day until, fingers crossed, the times table has been mastered! Why not give it a go and see how many times tables you and your child can perfect before they return to school in September?