There are so many drill products out there, and I don't know which one to use or why one would be better than another. Maybe it doesn't really matter, but I thought I would ask anyway. The ways I have come across to drill math facts are the following:

-Bealls Learning Games (just bought this)
-3 corner flashcards (just bought these too)
-Calculadder
-Math Mammoth Workbook (Addition 1)
-Facts as copywork (from queen homeschool who sells Charlotte Mason products)
-Addition songs (though I don't like the wrap up raps)
-Flashmaster
-teaching facts through math stories (I think from city press....found in The Old Schoolhouse magazine in an ad)
-MUS online drill
-other workbooks, wipe-off books, etc. found anywhere

She is doing Horizons K, and we are on lesson 96 I think. So far we have only learned the 0's and the 1's. Should we move ahead of the book in this area, or just stay with what they suggest? I want to do MUS Alpha when we are done with Horizons to teach a few concepts a different way than Horizons did. Thanks for the help.

Hi Shaina -

We currently use MUS. DD8 is in Beta and DD 7 is in Alpha. DD7 was just not getting the facts - partially due to some ADD issues, partially just her learning style. I bought the book Two Plus Two is Not Five ( http://longevitypublishing.com/ )as a supplement. It teaches the math facts in a different way with memory tricks. It's quite unique actually. There is lots of drill included in this book. I put all the pages into a page protector and she writes on them with a dry erase marker. We also discovered that if she "sings" the facts to a tune of her choice that she can concentrate on them much better.

Blessings,
Jennifer

It's really important, I believe, not to stick with one method of practice.

If you stick with one method, the mind can play funny tricks on you. I have the race game called Quarter Mile Math for math facts, which is quite good. I used it myself to try to master the squares up to 25 (19X19 and so forth). I can whiz through those with no hesitation whatsoever, but I can't tell you what 23X23 is! My fingers know what keys to press, but my brain doesn't associate 23X23 with a specific numbers.

I am certain that if I had approached the squares with more than one method at a time, I wouldn't have had this problem. And I don't think it's limited to QMM; I think when we practice something mainly in one context, it's harder to transfer to other contexts. Keep more than one method of drill going!

If it were me, I would not drill facts beyond where you've studied. It's better to understand conceptually what you're doing before you start to memorize number facts.