Times tables game

How the times tables game works

The game has one job: get every fact from 1 × 1 to 12 × 12 to the point where your child just knows it. It does that by keeping track of every fact separately, so practice time goes to the facts that need it instead of the ones your child already knows.

There are four tabs:

Inside Practice, Quiz and Challenge you choose a game: Mixed facts (7 × 8 = ?), Missing number (7 × □ = 56, the unknown factor problems in 3.OA.A.4) or Fact families (7 × 8, 8 × 7, 56 ÷ 7 and 56 ÷ 8 in a row, with the number triangle on screen). Answers can be typed with the keyboard or the on-screen number pad, or picked from four choices.

How the adaptive practice decides what comes next

The game uses a Leitner system, the box method many flash card programs are built on. Each fact lives in one of five boxes:

A right answer within three seconds moves the fact up one box. A right answer that took longer keeps it in the same box: your child knows it, but is still working it out. A wrong answer sends it back to box 1.

When Practice starts, the game picks facts in this order:

1. Facts that are due, lowest box first.
2. A few new facts (four per session), or fewer when five or more facts are stuck in box 1. Adding unknown facts slowly is what makes the method work; a child who meets 30 new facts at once remembers few of them.
3. Facts that are almost due, to fill the round.

Two well-studied findings sit behind this. Spacing practice out over days beats cramming it into one session, and the gap should grow as the memory gets stronger (Cepeda and colleagues, 2006, reviewed hundreds of experiments on this). And recalling an answer, rather than rereading it, makes it stick: a 2013 review by Dunlosky and colleagues rated practice testing and spaced practice as the two most useful study techniques of the ten they studied.

What fluent means, and why the timer matters

Common Core standard 3.OA.C.7 says that by the end of 3rd grade, children should "know from memory all products of two one-digit numbers." Knowing from memory is different from being able to work a fact out. A child who skip-counts to find 7 × 8 gets the right answer, but slowly, and the effort leaves less attention for the multi-step problem the fact is part of: long division, fractions, area.

The game treats a fact as fluent when it's answered right within three seconds, a common cutoff for telling a remembered fact from a counted one. The What Works Clearinghouse practice guide for elementary math intervention (2021) recommends regularly including timed activities as one way to build fluency, and rates that recommendation as having strong evidence. Timed practice should come after understanding, though. That's why Practice has no clock, and why a slow right answer isn't treated as a mistake.

The order to learn the times tables

Most programs teach the tables in an order where each new table leans on one already known. The Learn tab gives the matching strategy for every fact.

Turnarounds halve the work: once your child knows 3 × 8, they know 8 × 3. By the time they reach the 7s, only 7 × 7 is truly new. Andrew Baroody's research on basic facts (2006) makes the case for teaching these reasoning strategies first, then practicing to fluency, instead of memorizing 144 unrelated answers.

One times table at a time

To practice a single table, tap only its number before you start. The grid dims the other rows. Each table also has a printable chart and worksheet, and the game opens on that table when you come from one of them:

When a table is mostly green, add it to the mix with the ones before it. Mixed practice is harder than one table at a time, and closer to how facts show up in real problems.

A routine that works

Short and often beats long and rare. A routine many families use:

• Five to ten minutes a day, most days of the week. One Practice round of 20 facts takes about five minutes.
• One Challenge round at the end if your child likes beating their best score. Best scores stay on this device.
• Check the grid once a week. Pink facts are the ones to talk through; tap one in Learn to see the array and the strategy.
• Print the facts still to learn for car rides or a quick paper drill. The printable uses our multiplication worksheet generator, so it comes with an answer key.

For more variety on the same facts, try the multiplication games: speed match, memory pairs, missing factor and an array builder all update the same grid. Younger children working on sums can use the addition and subtraction games, which work the same way, and online flashcards cover math facts alongside sight words and spelling.

Multiple choice for younger children

Typing a two-digit answer quickly is its own skill. For 2nd and early 3rd graders, switch Answers to Pick from 4. The wrong choices are built from real mistakes: the fact next door (7 × 7 or 7 × 9 for 7 × 8), the sum instead of the product (15), and digits swapped (65). A child who picks one sees a one-line strategy for the right answer. Number keys 1 to 4 pick a choice, so it works with a keyboard too.

When to get more help

If a child has been practicing for several weeks and the grid is still mostly pink, the problem is usually understanding rather than memory. Go back to arrays and equal groups with objects, use the Learn tab's pictures, and read our guide on how to teach multiplication facts. Our math facts fluency guide explains how fluency builds across addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Full programs such as Reflex, XtraMath and Beast Academy, listed below, add structured lessons and teacher reports; many families use a free game like this one alongside them.