When Kirk was learning his multiplication tables, we tried flashcards. No dice. Kirk was bored. If he got an answer wrong, he frankly didn’t care. We tried the Multiplication Rap song. No help. While the song had a peppy back beat, nothing was sinking in. Then I happened up Math War Multiplication, an inexpensive card game and Kirk learned his tables in record time. He LOVES playing this game and his little brother Kai LOVES playing Math War Addition and Subtraction.
The premise is incredibly simple. Whoever has the bigger number wins. I sometimes stack the deck with Kai because that multiplies his enjoyment of the game ten fold. He wants to play it over and over. Similarly, Kirk now had a big incentive to learn his tables. To win! I helped him the first few times, then started telling him I was winning with 8×6 to his 9×8. He thought that had to be wrong, but I told him he needed to give the correct answer to win.
To help out in the beginning, we took the multiplication poster in his bedroom and brought it downstairs so he could look up answers he was unsure of. But after playing ten or twelve times, he’d mastered 90 percent of the tables and now we mix it up with Math War Division.
So if you want a cheap, easy, fast, fun after dinner game, pick up a pack of Math War cards and watch your child’s incentive to learn skyrocket. Let the games begin….
