Series A Multiplication Manual

Most homeschool math curriculums start multiplication and algebra much too late. Here on this website you see five year olds factoring polynomials. Jerry was adamant that multiplication tables could and should be mastered by the age of seven. But you aren't going to ruin the fun with worksheet after worksheet and timed drills with paper and pencil. 

Make multiplication fun with lots of multi-sensory activities, games and music instead.   

Multiplication is the absolute milestone in mathematics because it allows you to count very quickly. You'll notice there are many pages dedicated to multiplication on my blog and website here at the house of math. That's because multiplication is tremendously important.  

Public schools ruin math by making multiplication hard and tedious with endless drills and worksheets. Almost all of public school math curriculums focus on worksheets and drills. At the house of math we focus on fun. They can learn multiplication without knowing they are practicing multiplication, by doing algebra for example. In order to learn multiplication you need to be conversant with addends; why not teach addends and multiplication with algebra all at the same time? i show you how. 

Here is a FREE PDF that lists all 45 addends using polynomials.

Practice Polynomials For Addends and Multiplication 

Games and Activities make multiplication fun. In addition to learning their addends they can learn the first four multiples of numbers just by building that tower. On the bottom level we can count 6, 12, 18, 24, in addition to learning that a six can be 6 + 0, 5 + 1, 4 + 2, or 3 + 3...patterning is the first step to learning Multiplication. Playing and building make learning multiplication fun. You can have more than four posts/columns/pillars per level. In fact it help quite a lot if you use more than four on the bottom level...especially if you start with tens.  

The earlier you teach multiplication, the easier it is.  Using worksheets is probably the worst way to teach Multiplication, followed closely by flashcards. Both of these resources have their place, but they should be used last, not first. Singing songs when they're very young is a great place to start. Skip counting and building with blocks and then counting them is much more effective.  You can search YouTube for Multiplication music videos, & the Mortensen Company sells a skip count CD with coloring books to help you get started.  i am partial to Multiplication Rock myself.

AFTER You've spent quite a while playing with blocks and singing songs, then you can use worksheets and flashcards, Not only to help with repetition but to gauge how well Students have mastered their multiplication tables. 

The matrix should be memorized out to 20 x 20. That's 400 math facts. 

Once you get addends & the 9 x 9 matrix memorized, the rest should come easy. 

Do a search using your favorite search engine (which I hope isn't Google) for

Crewton Ramone Multiplication 

& see how much stuff comes back.

Round out your homeschool math curriculum with The Series A Manuals.
Here is a sneak peek at the Multiplication manual. There are nine other manuals in the series. The Series A Page has all the manuals, videos, and PDFs plus links to a whole lot more.  It's not free but it's worth it. 

Here is the Series A Multiplication Manual:

After you've played, fooled around, & had fun with your multiplication By building and playing and singing, flashcards can take the place of a bedtime story...

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Here are a few FREE PDFs you:

Some old articles about Mortensen Math.

Scope and Sequence of the Books.

Judy Townsend on "why" Mortensen Math

Progress Charts For Mortensen Math Books

Skip Count Underlays

Practice Polynomials For Addends and Multiplication

Five Basic Concepts.

Principles

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These PDFs should come in handy and help you understand and use the mortensen math curriculum for best effect. Add music and singing to your homeschool math. Click on the link to multiplication rock and get Jerry's skip count CD. It has silly multiplication songs for preschoolers and kindergarteners. Again multiplication should be mastered by the time they are seven or eight. Waiting until they are nine or ten and then drilling them with memorization and worksheets is ineffective, but that is exactly what most math curriculums do. 

Here is a blog post i made that explains why earlier is better for learning multiplication tables and languages called House For A Duck, it talks about brain waves and the optimal time to introduce certain math concepts. If you are going to teach math, it helps to know how the brain works.

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Games and Activities. (III)
Beginner multiplication.(III)
Teach multiplication.
Multiplication table.
Multiplication rock.

Blog of Math Multiplication
Blog of Math Multiplication Tables 

"The world looks like a multiplication-table, or a mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Working together precedes winning together...collaboration is multiplication." ~John C. Maxwell