City Creek Press–Times Alive

2x2=4, 3x4=12, 4x5=20, 6x6=36 and over and over the drill goes.  Saying the facts over and over, looking at flash cards, drilling again and again. Memorizing multiplication facts is not the most fun task in the world. City Creek Press knows that drilling math facts can be boring and not very effective.  Their new program Times Alive helps to solve the boring, rote  drill and turn learning multiplication tables into an adventure.

Start the video to watch just how the Times Alive program works.

Musical, colorful and just plain fun is the approach that Times Alive takes to help memorize the multiplication tables.  This program is aimed at elementary age students.

Features of this program include: (taken from City Creek Press website)

Students read along while they hear the storyteller.

Lively animation makes the number characters come alive.

Each story is followed by a music video with a catchy song.

Interactive games and fun quizzes engage the student while testing recall.

Progress reports summarize date lesson completed, quiz scores, and time elapsed.

Students may stop anywhere and resume where they left off. The program remembers.

Our View of the Program

Likes

• Colorful
• Catchy songs
• Different Log-Ins for each child, remembered where they were at.
• The facts were presented in a slow, easy to understand voice.
• The  “Excellent” that was said each time a problem was correct. Rebekah and Ben loved the way this was said.

 

Ben (9) and Rebekah (7) were the two that used Times Alive. Both of them will tell you they loved the program. I had to set the timer so that they didn’t play for hours. Ben knew most of his multiplication facts and this program helped to cement them into his long term memory. Rebekah had never done multiplication. I am amazed at how many multiplication facts she remembers. Both of them love the stories and songs that go along with each fact. To add to the fun, there are “coloring” sheets that can be completed with just a click of the mouse. I was listening to the stories and songs and some of them did not make sense to me. But, when I sat down with my kids and watched everything fell into place. The stories are presented and the pictures give clues. I worried that they would need the picture clues all the time, but once the facts were learned, they just seemed to be able to spit them out. As I said, Rebekah has done no multiplication, yet when Ben was talking out loud and said “6x6 is …” Rebekah piped up with the answer for him “thirsty-six”. This program seemed a little “spendy” to me, but I feel it is worth it  if you have kids that are having trouble memorizing their multiplication tables. It was just plain fun.

Price

Times Alive is available from City Creek Press in two forms: An Instant Download, (both Windows PC and Mac available) and a CD-Rom

$44.95     Times Alive Instant Download

$48.95     Times Alive Cd-Rom

City Creek Press also has other Multiplication and Addition resources available. Visit their website by clicking on any link to their name and see what may be of help to your children,

To get an even bigger picture of the Times Alive program visit the Crew Blog to read what other members of the TOS Review Crew thought about this product.

As an Independent contractor for The Old Schoolhouse and member of TOS Homeschool Crew I received a download of the Times Alive program for free from City Creek Press in exchange for my honest review of their product.