Printable Multiplication Facts Flash Cards (And Ideas for How to Use Them)

Flash cards are a useful resource for practising multiplication facts. This post will give you lots of ideas for how to use them.
If your child is working on their multiplication facts, you’ll know that it takes a fair amount of practice to get all those facts committed to memory.
One resource that can help with all that endless practice is flash cards.
Multiplication fact flash cards are simply small cards, each with the first part of a multiplication fact on them, for example ‘2 x 5′ or ’10 x 9’.
Flash cards are great visual aid for learning and revising multiplication facts, plus they’re portable so can be taken with you to learn on the go. Flash cards don’t need to be charged and they don’t have a screen. Somehow in this technological day and age, that’s all rather appealing.
Multiplication fact flash cards can be made at home, or, if you want to save yourself some time, we have ready-to-print flash cards in our store.
Want some ideas for how flash cards can help your child with multiplication facts? Then read on.
Use Them to Learn Facts
Before children start learning their multiplication math facts, they should already have done plenty of foundational work on multiplication, exploring the concept and seeing multiplication shown in different ways, for example as ‘x groups of y’, or in the form of multiplication arrays.
Eventually children will get to the stage where it’s helpful for them to know the products of different numbers by heart (usually up to 10 x 10, or even better 12 x 12). And when children get to this ‘fact-learning’ stage, flash cards can be very useful.
When starting with multiplication facts, begin by choosing just a a few facts to work on from the set of cards. As your child makes progress, you can keep the cards in two different piles – facts that have been learnt, and facts that are still to come.
This makes it easy to see keep things organised. Plus, children can see the progress they are making.
On each card, you can write the answer to the multiplication fact on the back. This way children have the answers to refer to as they’re learning.
Revising Facts
Once children have learnt their facts and can recall them confidently, it’s still important to revise them often so that they stay front of mind.
I always recommend a ‘little and often’ approach to multiplication facts, and flash cards make a quick and easy way to whiz through all the facts to keep them ticking over.
Children may want to use the cards to revise one multiplication table at a time, e.g. the 4 times table. Too easy? Then combine several groups of cards together, e.g. the 4s and the 6s. The ultimate challenge? Shuffle all the cards up and go through the multiplication facts in a totally random order.
If there are some facts that your child stumbles over, pull out those cards and put them aside ready to focus on again the next day.
Flash cards are really versatile in how they can be used – a great resource for regular quick bursts of revision.
Games and Activities
There are also games and hands-on activities that you can do with flash cards. Let’s take a look at some examples. (For the activities below we are using a set of flash cards that has answer cards too.)
1.Matching Pairs
Does your child love playing games? Then you can play the classic ‘matching pairs’ using multiplication flash cards.
Divide the cards into two sets: one set with the multiplication cards (e.g. 3 x 4) and another set with all the answers (e.g 12).
Lay the multiplication cards out in a 2 x 5 grid on the left, and all the answer cards in a 2 x 5 grid on the right, like so:
One person starts by turning over one card from the left side and one card from the right. If the two cards make a completed multiplication facts (e.g 8 x 9 and 72), pick up both cards and have another turn.
If the two cards do not go together turn them back over and play passes to the next person. When all the cards have been taken, count up how many correct matching pairs each player has. The player with the most wins.
2. Multiplication Match-up
This is a simple matching activity.
On the table, jumble up both the question cards and the answer cards, face up. Have your child match the question cards with the corresponding answer card. The more facts you include, the more challenging it will be.
3. Backwards Facts
This is a good activity once your child has most of the facts memorised and just needs to keep them ticking over.
I call these ‘backwards facts’, because, well, this time you’re starting with the answers and finding the question (the ‘a x b’).
First lay all the multiplication cards on the table, face up, like so:
Keep the answer cards in your hand. One by one, say a number from an answer card (e.g. 36) and have your child grab the corresponding multiplication card (4 x 9).
Repeat until you have been through all the cards.
Want to make it tougher? Combine two sets of flash cards (e.g. the 9s and the 8s) so there are even more cards to choose from. Or pick 10 to 15 multiplication facts from a range of multiplication tables.
This activity is great because it gets your child thinking about their facts in reverse, thus making things a little more interesting and also challenging.
Get your own set of flash cards
You can easily make your own sets of flash cards at home. Or to save time, we have printable flash cards that require only printing and cutting out. These cards include all facts from 1 x 1 up to 12 x 12.
These work best printed on to thin card stock. To keep things organised, I print each different multiplication table onto a different colour of card (who doesn’t love a bit of colour coding?!).
Our set includes two different flashcard versions. If you want a set just for revising facts, you might like our mini flash cards. For playing matching pairs and for all the matching activities, you’ll want our second set of cards. These are larger and include the answer cards too.
Printable Multiplication Facts Flash Cards – available now!
This set of printable flash cards (PDF digital download) is available in both the Math, Kids and Chaos store, as well as in our TPT store.