British Expatriate Network

I'm currently helping the 5th and 6th grade (10/11 yo) who need a litle extra help with their maths. Some of them need more than a little help, but most of the group understand the priciples of multiplications and are held back by not knowing their tables by heart, so right now we're concentrating on getting their times tables memorized.

One trick that is being used is the finger trick for the 9s -so simple, so easy, but yet I never heard of it when I was in school and only encountered it here recently. I just asked beest, and he'd never heard of it before either. Did you?

if you need to know 9*X, hold your fingers out in front of you and (starting from the left) count up to finger X, then put that one down. The fingers to the left of the bent finger represent the 10s to the answer and the fingers to the right, the units. Easy.

Not helpful if you don't understand the concept of multiplication, but great if you need an aid to help learn the tables by rote. I wonder why we never came across it?

I remember being taught the "divisible by three" trick, so it's not that the system didn't allow the use of tricks before the proof was understood (did the proof for that one at A-level)

Those cold Michigan winters must just fly by. D

Yes, I know that one for the 9 times table. And I heard about it in the UK but not when I was at school, I believe. I just can't remember how I heard about it - whether it was through my own children being in school and helping out at the schoo, or before I even had kids.

the other one with the 9x* that I did hear about in school is more associated with division where you have the answer up to 9 x 10. both numbers in the answer add up to 9. for example, 9 x 4 = 36. 3 + 6 = 9. So, if you have the number 36 and you need to divide it with something you know that 9 will go into it. Or if you are having to write the 9 times table out in full.

I know I've used both of these with the students here to help them with their math, as well as just getting the numbers into their heads parrot fashion, without the * x * first.

Yes, I learned the 9s trick at school and still use it.

Oh yes, finger dexterity comes in very handy when passing the long winter nights. :mrgreen:

Really? Is that to check the answer that immediately pops to mind, or did you never get them memorized once you knew you had a quick trick?

Ben, I had to stop them doing the "make sure both digits add up to 9" -it caused confusion when they knew they were supposed to be multiplying and we were banging on about place value "but you said the ones on the left were tens so I can't just add them without adding the zero" "you're right, we did, ok forget that". But worse, they insist on extrapolating and think because it works for 9s, it should work for everything. *sigh* :lol:

These poor kids have mostly come from other schools which were failing them, and there's so much bad teaching we have to undo before we can get them straight. Some of them are special ed, but most are kids the teachers have failed to notice that they haven't quite got the procedures down before piling the memorisation thing on them. It's propbably not the teachers' faults in most cases -more the pressure to get the majority of kids scoring highly on the stupid checkbox tests. These kids don't do too badly on the tests, but their understanding of what they are doing is horrible. And now it's taking two parent volunteers two times a week, plus extra help from the teachers to get the problems sorted.

Oops, ranting again....

never memorized times tables....bad memory....bad hippocampus probably. I had to work out all my multiplications each time and mostly still do. Some I remember but more I don't.

All i remember is, if adding nine take one off the back number and add one to the front number. Oh, and how to write a cheque. I figured anything else I'd pay someone else to do.
When they brought in metric I was annoyed, with the currency, when they brought in Kilos and centigrade I emmigrated.
Maths are not my subject roll

Word! :roll:

It's "math", singular, but don't ask me why.

Nines are wonderful, they can be used for a number of showoff pieces.

I didn't know the finger trick but I wouldn't have used it.

Here's a showoff thing
Write down a three or more digit number, as many as you like.
Re-order the same digits to get another number.
Subtract the smaller number from the larger.
Put a circle around one of the digits of the answer, any number except zero since that is already circular.
Post the rest of the digits of the answer on here and I will tell you the missing digit.

Why? :P


It's Math in the US and Maths in the UK.