Tony Silva

Memorable Stories = Painless Times Tables
Times Tales
http://www.Timestales.com
$29.95 or $34.95 with 3 X5” flip chart for your child
Trigger Memory Systems

If the Times Tales memory system had been available when I was a child, I might have made different career choices in adulthood. OK, so no cool learning tool is really life changing, but this one comes close. Simply put, Times Tales takes the drudgery of learning the upper number multiplication facts and turns it into a series of fun stories.

Multiplied Giggles

The program starts with a collection of absurd and absurdly drawn characters. These are the building blocks, or memory hooks called, “mnemonics”. If you follow the six step plan outlined in the teacher’s manual, you will experience something amazing: without realizing it, your child will have learned the most difficult multiplication facts in about 45 minutes for each of the two parts. The instructions recommend allowing a week after introducing the facts in Part 1 before moving on to Part 2.

Although the characters and their names seem funny to adults, they’re not unlike the things that live in a child’s imagination, and they’ll be right at home there. Times Tales is both fun to use and amazingly effective. A little over a month after completing Part 2, we gave our eight year-old the test that comes with the curriculum. He aced it.

Quibbles & Bits

There are few quibbles here. What works… works. The flash cards come perforated so they can be easily separated and set up for use. Unfortunately, a cube game that is perfect for the active kinesthetic learner has to be cut out and glued together.

Having the stories printed on a durable flip chart is a great feature and now, a child-sized flip chart is available for a nominal fee allowing for easier review. Times Tales is marketed as a multiplication tables program, but it also comes with stories and cards for division problems as well.

Other Innovative Learning Tools

Trigger Memory Systems offers other innovative learning tools on their Web site. Among them is the popular “Clean N’ Flip” series of flip charts. These range in price from $7.95 each for Bedroom Cleaning for Kids and Laundry Cleaning for Kids to $17.95 for Zone Cleaning for Kids. The entire set is available for $29.95.

“Clean N’ Flip” charts divide the work of everyday chores into smaller more manageable tasks. Zone Cleaning for Kids takes this concept to a higher level by assigning chores within various “zones” throughout the home. Time zones can be assigned based on the time a chore needs to be done. These tools are great for families with young children who have not developed a structured system of chores and responsibilities. However, you may find the author’s idea of “proper cleaning” is different from your own. Homes are laid out differently and children’s ages vary. A good example of this is Bedroom Cleaning for Kids. It has a great step-by-step system for cleaning and organizing a messy bedroom but recommends emptying the trash only when it is more than half full. You may expect the trash to be emptied daily or on specific days of the week.

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