They say there’s an app for everything, and it turns out there is.

Just two months into year one BB is already about to start learning her times tables (I swear they start doing things earlier and earlier these days) so I’ve been looking into how we can help at home.

I’ve got no idea how I learnt mine – my memory is a total blank – but what I do remember is that once I ‘got’ it and worked out how to do them I loved it, and I’d love BB to feel the same way.

Fun ways to help your child with times tables

Which is where Maths Rockx comes in. It’s a new app that teaches the times tables with a little help from the likes of One Direction, Lady Gaga, P!nk and lots of clapping (bear with me).

Basically each set of times tables is set to music – think Jerry Lee Lewis’s Great Balls of Fire for the two times tables, Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You) for three times and P!nk’s So What for five times (this one is so catchy it really gets stuck in your head – the whole family is singing it).

Downloading the app is really easy – you just visit either the iTunes or Google Play app stores depending on whether you’ve got an iPhone or Android device, and the app costs £7.99 for 11 songs.

There’s a video explaining how it works from the app’s creator Jo Otto, a former teacher and mum-of-two who taught the times tables to beats for 10 years before coming up with the idea for the app.

I started by creating a playlist for BB up to and including the five times tables as I didn’t want to overwhelm her.

I imagined starting at the beginning with the two times tables because that’s the easiest, but quickly discovered it’s the music that captured her attention – and interest and enthusiasm – so we started with the five times tables owing to the fact P!nk’s So What is so compulsive.

There’s a quiz section where you can test how they’re progressing with simple questions for each set of times tables (you can choose from beginner where they have no time limit to answer the question to ‘expert’ where they have just 2 seconds to tap in an answer) and I have to say I’ve been surprised how quickly BB is picking it up.

There’s a big green tick when you enter the right answer, which is swiftly followed by a ‘yesss’ from BB who is mightily pleased with herself. She’s been constantly asking me if she can borrow my phone to play with the ‘new app’, and even Little B is enthralled despite the fact he can’t even recognise numbers yet, let alone put them together.

My only slight reservation is that the app is teaching songs (or numbers) rather than the meaning behind them, but Misery Guts reckons it doesn’t matter at BB’s age and it’s all about having fun, and he’s probably right.

Despite the fact I haven’t the foggiest how I learnt my times tables, I remember I enjoyed the process which is the main thing, right?

How did you learn your times tables? Do you have any top tips?

This post was written in collaboration with Maths Rockx. To find out more about Maths Rockx visit www.mathsrockx.com

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