Times Fables: Learn your times tables in as little as a week [3rd Edition] Paperback – 28 Feb. 2021

I have three children aged 6,8 and 9. Prior to this purchase my 6 year old could do her 10s, 5s and almost 2s properly. My 8 year old and 9 year old were good at 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 9s, 10s, 11s. The more difficult to work out quickly 6s, 7s, 8s were always tricky for them. My children are bright little buttons and I am an ex teacher (Maths if you would believe it) but always struggled with remembering my times tables when I was younger and getting them to do mental maths (Mathletics and Times Tables Rock Stars online as set by the school) has been a bit of a challenge recently through lockdown. I looked for maths workbooks and came across this on Amazon... I know im a visual learner so thought id give this a go, especially since it is only on the 3,4,6,7,8 and 9 times tables (the trickier ones)It arrived quickly in great condition and while none of my children were too enthusiastic to read it themselves, while my older two were outside I sat down with my little bookworm 6 year old. We read the first few pages and then went over them again. We read a few more pages and then went through them from the beginning again... we finally finished the last few pages and went through the whole book to see if she could remember them. In total spent about 20 minutes reading together.When my older two came in from outside I did them a maths quiz - 15 timed questions - and said they could have a chocolate button for every one they got right. They all tried their best. My 9 year old scored 11, my 8 year old scored 5 and my 6 year old experimental child who had never once answered any of these questions correctly before in her life got 14/15! Absolute Miracle. My older two - a bit put out that the littlest knew her times tables better than them spent a bit of time reading it with me and over the course of the next 4 days now they absolutely love showing off that they know all their times tables! Weve had video calls from their dad, grandad, aunty and nannie who have all quizzed them and been wow'd that they have learned them in such a short space of time. Now they love pop up maths quizzes... They havent got any wrong or forgotten any. Its the best money ive spent EVER.-The concept of the book is based on the fact that some people retain information better through visual aid... just like people memorising a deck of cards or a series of images... by making up stories about them.- Dr Sven is my favourite character 100%- My eldest and youngest love the fact they have an 8 year old sister for the squared numbers page for number 8...Massive thanks

This book is brilliant! It is a amazon self-published book which is why its a bit expensive and has a thin 'self-published' feel to it but don't let that put you off! I'm very grateful to the author for providing a different way of learning times tables from the same old learning by rote! It never worked for me and unsurprisingly my daughter, who loves to draw, seems to be the same. I've never been able to remember 6 x 9 for example but now for some reason I find it easy to remember 6 elves go to the magic tree (9) 54 days before Christmas. It's like using mnemonics for times tables. Some people will say its far to complicated as you have to learn a story in order to remember something else but for many people the remembering the story part is far easier than just remembering the numbers on their own! Me included!When I first read it, I could feel myself getting a bit overwhelmed with all the characters and numbers but if you take it one story at a time and just stick with it your brain soon cracks the code. You start to see the characters as their numbers and you remember the resulting number in the story.My daughter has enjoyed the stories and has already remembered some of them. As we keep reading, I'm sure the harder ones will stick too. She also loves the rhymes in Part Two for the 3X3, 4x4, 5x5 etc. These are great and she's already cracked these.I'm now planning to get the author's other book on number bonds!

This is pretty magical this book! Read with my 6 year old and she knew her times tables within the day! It’s great to use imagination to form stories to help remember the other ones too. My only concern is I learnt mine from rote learning as a child and it remains embedded today- not sure how long this will remain for her. Also, there’s no sequencing, the book jumps from one times table set to the next, again, not sure how this would help long term. Nonetheless it certainly helped with engagement and confidence so it’s worth the buy d even just to make maths more fun!!

My daughter is 8 and struggles with maths, especially learning times tables. She could only step count in 2s, 5s and 10s before getting this book. She remembers these stories so well, better than me, and now she knows most of her times tables from 1 to 10. We have only had the book for a couple of months. I cannot believe what a difference it has made! It has also shown her that she is smart, she just sometimes needs to learn in a different way.