I am part of the Homeschool Review Crew. All opinions are my own.
Mary is in 3rd grade this year and that means she started learning her multiplication. Her father is the one who normally does math with her since it's not my strongest subject and he has been teaching her the old fashioned way, just with paper and pencil. Mary started out doing well with her multiplication facts but we noticed that after the first day of having them memorized, she would forget the next day. So we were thrilled when we got the chance to review Times Alive online lessons with animated songs and stories to learn times tables the fun way.
Times Tables the Fun Way starts off with a practice test to see just how much your student knows about multiplication. Even though Mary had been studying all year long, she still didn't know many of them from the practice test it gave her. She ended up starting right at the beginning with the 0's. But I honestly didn't mind because I wanted her to actually remember her multiplication facts.
How Times Alive works is that your lesson starts with an animated story. At the end of the story, it will give you a simple tip to remember the fact. For instance, 6 x 6 = thirsty sixes (36). After the tip, the lesson continues with a song about the video they had just watched. And after the song, there is a quick review to see if your child can remember the actual multiplication fact and answer.
You can check the student progress report easily from the main menu on their account at any time. And throughout the lessons, there are fun things for the kids as well like some coloring pages. Times Alive really does make learning the multiplication facts a lot more fun than just using flashcards. And the best part is that Mary is actually remembering her facts weeks after she learned them!
After a few key lessons, the student will also have a quick recap quiz to see if they remember which story went with what fact as well. Because the facts go with different stories, it makes it a lot easier to remember. Mary goes through the quizzes very quickly because she has tied the facts to the certain stories.
And there are also progress checks as well without the pictures to see if your student is remembering the actual facts. What I love is that Mary will sit down and say, "This was the snowmen", or "This was the snail", even on the progress checks. So far she is remembering all of the facts and goes through the progress checks perfectly which makes me so happy!
I truly can see how this program works and I am glad to say that it works well! I wish that learning the times tables could have been this fun when I was growing up.
There are 18 total lessons in Times Tables the Fun Way so it's not a long program. Most kids finish within a month's time and it looks like Mary is on that track too.
The only thing I wish that could change for the program is that they don't go through every single multiplication fact. And they barely go through the 12's which is the one Mary really needs help on. So even after you finish this program, there will still be some that they will need to learn the old fashioned way.
Even though this program doesn't touch on every single multiplication fact, it's still a good basis for kids to start on.
Overall it has worked very well for Mary and I highly recommend it to any kid that is struggling with their multiplication facts.