I was excited to receive a three months subscription to an incredible maths product from Times Alive online lessons with animated songs and stories to learn times tables the fun way. A8 needed a refresh on some of her tables and it was the perfect time to begin memorising some of the easier tables with B5.
What is Times Alive ‘Times Tables the Fun Way’?
Times Tables the Fun Way teaches the tables in a fun interactive way using catchy tunes and interesting, cute and very clever tales. For example, Zero is called King and so everything he comes across turns into zero (ie any number multiplied by King Zero is zero).
The number one is a mirror and simply reflects back whatever number it is multiplied by (ie any number multiplied by 1 remains the same).
These were so clever and yet so simple.
In fact, the whole program is very simple to use with a useful lesson list:
As well as a progress chart:
Every so often there is a progress check which can be completed online or downloaded and printed out. I had the girls do both so the concepts were practiced double the amount of times!
How Did We Use Times Alive?
I began Times Alive with my youngest daughter sitting on my lap. We watched the zero multiplication facts and I could see that she was struggling to understand what was going on. No worries, we just went through it again, watching the short video as many times as she needed to understand the concept. It was a joy to see the light bulb suddenly go on. She understood! We moved onto the ones. This time she understood almost straight away. So far we have done up to lesson 5. I have moved slowly, at her pace and she has never once complained of learning and best of all, when tested away from the computer casually in conversation she remembers everything. So far she has learnt the 0’s, the 1’s and the 2’s as well as learning what 3×3 is, 3×4 and 8×8 in just two and a half weeks!
My eight year old began her first try of Times Alive at 10 in the morning, and had to be dragged away to eat her lunch at mid day. Yes, she was at it for two hours solid, and by the third day had worked her way through every single lesson. She was completely engrossed by the whole program, giggling away at the stories and characters, and singing along with well-known nursery rhymes, like Three Blind Mice.
In the end, not sure if she was actually learning anything, I sat with her to go through the lessons and to take the tests (she had skipped over those on her first journey through 🙂 ) I was astounded by her memory of the stories and songs and could see just how well this program had worked. I was particularly pleased because it seemed she did not need to go through the whole story or song in order to reach the answer. She just knew it. Whilst we haven’t gone through the program an entire second time, and she is moving much slower through it with my interference, I couldn’t be happier with the results.
It is recommended that the child does at least twenty minutes a couple of times a week. B5 did about ten minutes each day apart from weekends and A8 did about twenty minutes each day.
What Did We Think of Time Alive?
Times Alive is very well thought out, and so simple to use. Everything is very logical, so I did not need to spend time figuring out exactly how to use it. And both girls LOVED it.
Times Alive does exactly what it advertises: it teaches the times tables in a fun and painless way. I would highly recommend this program for any home school parents who wish to teach their children the tables in an enjoyable and moan free way 🙂
Times Alive Social Media
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LearnMultiplication/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F35_ZRpRzJI
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That looks really cool. It reminds me a little bit of Schoolhouse Rock from the 80s here in the States.