Update on the math

A year ago I did an update on Lotte (See here)
Reading through it again I noticed this part:

"Math is a little problematic.. The tables 1-10 go in slowly, and probably by photographic memory.. But she's not the only one in her class... There are many other children that have the same problem... Guess she doesn't have the brain for math... yet... It will come..." (Great to have this blog and go back in history.)

Nowadays she aces the multiplication tables.. A test at school with 2 pages (200 problems) of this stuff and she had 100%.. Practice makes perfect.

What's more important than 100% is the fact that she has a feeling of mastering something. Even though the practice sessions were sometimes long and tedious (mostly it was fun.), she understands the importance of it now, since she sees how much easier things have become.

They now started with division, and she has no problems with it. After all, with the multiplication tables firmly embedded in her memory, she just sees the answers.. Just like we do.

What we did for practice?

• We made cards with the question on one side, answer on the other and went through them. Wrong answer, card back in the pile..


• I also made a spreadsheet that would randomly come up with one column with addition-problems, one with substraction and one with multiplication. Sometimes we let her do this before she would be allowed to use the computer. 


• Downloaded some iPad apps that made it fun. (And needed to be done before she started listning to music or watching videos on the iPad.)


• We also bought a wooden version of the cards. Little blocks with question on one side, answer on the other. Those we used a lot after the summer and I also used them reverse: Showing the answer and Lotte giving me the question...