Add Stories to Learning Multiplication Facts

“Some amazing things go on in there, don’t they?” asked Mom as she watched Abigail peering into a window of the STEM clubhouse.

“Sure do. I wish I could help other kids like Anna and Andre and the other kids in the STEM club,” sighed Abigail.

“What’s the matter? Did they tell you that you can’t come in?” Mom questioned.

“Oh, I’m allowed to come in. It’s just that when I get inside, they tell me that I’m too little to help. That I’ll hurt myself. All they do is let me watch and every once in a while, they’ll let me hand them something. But that’s not enough. I want to build and create things to help other kids like they do.” Abigail said.

“Don’t worry Honey. You may be too young to work with certain tools, but you’re not too young to help others. Ask the Lord how you can use the gifts he’s given you to help other people. And in the meantime, be thankful that they let you watch. You can learn so much by watching and asking questions.” Mom said.

“Hey, look who it is. It’s Abigail. How are you doing today?” Marie asked as I entered the clubhouse.

“Oh, I’m fine. What are you guys working on? Anything I can help with?” I asked.

“Well maybe you can. We have received our latest letter detailing our next mission, but we’re kind of stuck,” Anna, my sister said.

“Dear STEM Club, we’ve heard how you have helped so many others. In our area, it’s so hard to keep a teacher. The last teacher we had had to walk 2 hours a day to get to our school.

She couldn’t keep doing that because of a family situation. Our school doesn’t have much money to hire another teacher which is another reason why it’s so hard to find a teacher who’s willing to walk so far to get here and then work for so little money. We desperately want to become great mathematicians as we heard that you need to be good in math in order to be engineers, architects, and computer scientists. Many of us want to do these types of jobs. We hope to one day be able to help to build up the infrastructure in our area. Would you be willing to come here for a month and help us to learn our multiplication facts The school has found a teacher, but she’s not able to start for another month. We want to know all of our multiplication facts thru the 12s before she gets here so that we are ready to hit the ground running learning long division and fractions when the new teacher arrives Thank you in advance,” Anna said as she finished the letter.

“You’re learning multiplication right now aren’t you Abigail? Do you have any ideas on how we can teach these kids in such a short period of time all of their facts and make it stick?” Andre, my brother asked.

“Are you serious? You want ME to help out on this mission?” I asked.

“We sure do,” Anna said.

“Ok, so before get there, it’s important that the kids know their addition facts well. Particularly knowing my doubles such as 2+2, 3+3, 4+4, 5+5, etc. helped me to learn my 2 times tables quickly. So we should instruct them to spend lots of time learning their addition facts before we get there,” I said.

“Great idea Abigail. The 2 times tables is the same as adding a number twice. For example 2×3 is the same as adding two 3’s or 2×7 is the same as adding 2 sevens, so knowing your doubles will definitely help with the 2 times tables,” Andre said.

“Any more great ideas for the rest of the times tables Abigail?” Tommy, another club member asked.

“Well, to learn the 5 times tables, if a person already knows how to tell time then the 5 times tables aren’t hard. For example, when the minute hand is on the 1, the minute is 05. When the minute hand is pointing to the 2, the minutes are 10. When the minute hand is pointing for example to the 3, the minutes are 15, and so on. As the minute hand moves from the 1 to 2 to the 3 to the 4 and so on,we are counting by 5s. So have the kids practice telling time before we get there,” I said.

“Oh, yes right. So for example 1×5=5, 2×5=10, and 3×5=15.” Bella said.

“Yep, so for example, I quickly know that 8×5=40 because when the minute hand is pointing to the 8, the minute part of the time is 40,” I said.

“Awesome Abigail. We will send a message back to the kids with your instructions asap so that they have these things down before we get there,” Anna said.

“But what about the rest of the times tables. How will we teach them those facts?” Marie asked.

As everyone stood there looking at me, I didn’t have an answer. Would I be ousted out of the STEM Club just as fast as I had gotten in? I didn’t want to go back to be the kid staring in the window?

Do you want to know what the STEM kids made in their last adventure to help other kids. Check out the ebook Andre Kid Aviator OR the physical book, Andre Kid Aviator, which is available on Amazon!