Multiplication does not have to be a hard task. You don’t have to worry about the drills and flashcards that make it boring. Instead you can add some fun stories to your child’s math and they will have their multiplication facts memorized in no time! With the Times Tales Workbook and DVD I am building confidence in my third grader, while watching my first grader pick up on the stories as well!

This Times Tales Workbook covers the upper multiplication facts. There are two parts to the workbook, each part focusing on a certain amount of facts. You are told not to move on to the second part until you have the first part completely memorized.

Each fact has two pages of work to help your child learn the story and the fact. The first page, Learn the Story, has you learning your story. I spent two, sometimes three days on this part with my son. Saying the story repeatedly, and answering the questions. After we had a good foundation here, we moved onto the second page, Story Review, that gave us more questions on the story. By the time we were done with these two pages, we had the story pretty well memorized, and the pictures that went with the story helped us to know the numbers we needed to know for the multiplication fact.

Once we had gone through the facts for the first part, we had some fun review games to help us practice. These included crosswords using parts of the stories, story review questions, a lightbulb moment that showed us how the stories worked followed up with flashcard practice (not drill) and a quiz and test. Once we were able to master the quiz and test, we could move on to part two.

Part two is set up in the same way as part one. However, if your child needs a little extra practice, with either part, there is a Bonus DVD Game Show Quiz. This was fun to pull out and see what we could remember of the stories. This was a great practice and refresher as we added more stories to our list. There is even a section on division, using the story, to have your child find what is missing, making the concept of division that much easier!

This workbook is very similar to their interactive, online lessons. They use the same stories and the same idea of how to learn. But what I like better is that my son has to write things down in here instead of “playing a game” on the computer. Having him take that little bit of time to write the stories, cemented them into his brain. Also, if your child is more independent, they could work on this workbook on their own, going at their own pace.

We really enjoyed have a workbook that helped us make learning multiplication fun for us! We had so much fun learning the stories and having those moments of “aha” this is what that problem is. No more struggling with him to do math, rather, I had to tell him to take a break for a little bit! I am thankful to have this book in my house, and recommend it for anyone who is introducing multiplication, or working with a struggling learner, even one with learning disabilities.

—Product review by Amanda Hopkins, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, January, 2018