Practicing the Facts

As you are introducing each set of facts, continually review those facts your child has already learned.  Use your imagination to create games and activities to do with facts.  Try posting one fact each day on the refrigerator and focus on it for the entire day.  Ask, What strategy helps you remember this fact?  What makes it easy or hard? Tell story problems that could be solved using the fact.  You and your child can have fun practicing facts by playing games such as War and Concentration with cards you have made together.

To play War:

• Split your deck of cards in half, giving half to each player.
• Place cards face down in a stack.
• Each player turns over the top card in his or her stack at the same time.
• Each player names his or her fact, including the sum or product.
• The player who has the largest (or smallest) sum or product takes both cards.  When two cards have the same answer, turn a second card over and repeat steps 4 and 5.
• The winner is the player with the most cards.

To play Concentration:

• Select facts to be practiced.  Make a set of cards with addends (or factors) on them and a set with sums (or products).
• Shuffle the cards, then lay them face down in rows and columns.
• Take turns turning over pairs of cards.  If the cards match, the player keeps them and takes a second turn. 
  If the cards do not match, the other player takes a turn.
• Repeat until all matches are made.  The player with the most matches wins.

With time, patience and plenty of practice, your child will come to know the facts!

Source:  Montgomery County Public Schools. 1996.  Mathematics at home:  A guide for parents, grades K-2.  Rockville, MD:  Author. 

Additional Games:

              All in the Family