Review: Times Tables the Fun Way

I have good memories of elementary school. And excellent memories of my second grade teacher Mrs. Dunham. She was AWESOME! She was the one who taught me my Times Tables. As fun of a teacher as she was, I have no doubt, that had a program like this existed when she was a teacher, we would have been using it like crazy! We were so excited to try this product, and I'm even more excited to report that both of my boys loved the Times Alive program which features online lessons with animated songs and stories to learn times tables the fun way. I really wanted my kiddos to have fun in learning their Times Tables. I have tried a few programs, and like previous ones, this was a huge success! 

Here's a picture of my just turned eight-year-old Sidge following along with the program:

The program is incredibly easy to use. Your student logs in with his first name, and comes to a screen that looks like this. These are the lessons that he will work through as he makes his way through the program. (Check out the key on the right side to see what all of the symbols mean):

As a parent, I let my boys log in with their own unique name. And then, whenever I wanted, I could type in their name and click on "Student Progress Report" to see how they were doing on their lessons. For example, in this image below, I can see that my student scored a 33% on his first lesson and that it took them 42 seconds to complete. I can see how many he got right and on what date he took it:

The program works by providing online lessons with animated songs and stories to help students commit their times tables to memory. Here's an example below. This is a fun picture to color, but more importantly, the student is beginning to be introduced to the fact that 6 x 4 (see the snail that looks like the number 6 sitting in the number 4?) equals 24 (see the swan that looks like the number 6 sitting in a 4?) In other words 6 x 4 = 24.

Here's another example of the fun imagery used to help children remember their facts:

After being presented with the stories through fun songs, stories, and activities, the student is then asked to recall the image for that fact:

And after recalling the image, the student is then asked to recall the fact that correlates with that image:

I encourage you to check out Times Alive on Facebook or Youtube. Times Alive is actually a monthly subscription which I think is a nice way to handle this product. It isn't a product you will need for years on end. You will want to spend a few months working on it with your kids, and then it will probably be something you don't revisit for some time. It also allows you to just try the product for one month and see whether or not it is a good fit. In addition, that cost allows you to have multiple children log in so if you have a few children in your household who are at the appropriate age to learn their times tables, you can allow them to all do so.
As always, if you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to let me know. You can contact me personally via email at wkitsteiner at gmail or through Facebook. I always welcome additional questions on products and can give you more specific advice on whether this product would fit your family or not.
As for us, we really loved this product. We give it a 20. Isaac gives it a 10. And Sidge gives it a 10. (And 10 x 2 = 20!)