have you ever tried mental arithmethics?

Yes, I have tried it before. But I forgot what number I calculated... Basically, what happened is my brother told me how to calculate a light year. I remember doing the whole equation in my head, but it took me about an hour or so to come up with the answer. I do admit that my brain is kind of lazy, but I've worked it very hard before, too!

I'm 56, and when I was at junior school in the 1950's, we had mental arithmetic excercises every day, along with spelling tests once a week, times tables and handwriting lessons. It's a great grounding in basic numeracy and literary skills, and it should be reintroduced. This is a skill that, once you grasp it, is there for life. I can still beat my husband on the calculator with a list of figures. If your child's school does not do this, this is something you can do with your children to set them up for life. And it gets them away from computer games for a while!

I sent my son to a £3,500 a year public school (in the UK that means a private school - don't ask!) and at the end of it he came out not able to do mental arithmetic. Years later I went on the Net to see what was there for learning the times tables. There was nothing but poems, tables, tricks and expensive courses. So I put up a page for the way I learnt it - seven sevens are 49; seven eights are 56; and so on through the times tables. I urged the reader to team up with a friend and learn together 'parrot fashion' until they can remember the tables like they can remember their name or the days of the week. Calculators? Computers? Great bits of kit and very accurate. But how do you quickly check if the answer is realistic without mental arithmetic to help you? How do you know if you made a mistake putting the data in?

my son 5 year old is math lover.in kindergarten they learn how to used mental arithmetics, and still they are using some chinese style like abaccus.and it really works.now he knows how to used it.

I find it good that your son is calculating mentally. When I was in school mental arithmetic was very important. We had no calculators except the one in our head. In the UK at that time we had no decimal system for money or measurements. 12 pennies were 1 shilling. 20 shillings were 1 pound. 12 inches were 1 foot. 3 feet were 1 yard. 14 pounds were 1 stone. 8 stone were 1 hundredweight. 20 hundredweight were 1 ton. So if I went to the store and bought 6 pounds of potatoes at 1/9d per stone, 4 cakes at 3d each and 4 feet of cable at 1/6d per yard how much change did I get from a 10 shilling note? Today, almost 55 years after leaving school I can still calculate a lot in my head.

yes but using abacus i did not experienced it when i was young. but tho no abacus still have many sticks , stones, rubber bands available in our community. but still have the guts to learned more in mental arith metic coz our teachers those day are so strict and we must memorize everything thats why i knew the basics.

I think and believe that mental arithmetics is necessary for developing the mental strength in maths. Actually nowadays no one want to do it.

I'm teaching elemantary students course as my part time job. I taught them mental arithmetics because i found their teacher on their school still taught them with conventional methods. It doesn't worth time and logic if they must do math with conventional methods, especially if they are on final exam which time limited for doing the exam. Mental arithmetics is a great teaching method for mathmatics. We will learn the fastest logic on math with this method. One of my pupil has problem with multiplication. But after i taught him mental arithmetics, he could finish multiplication problems without false. Have a nice day and happy mylotting.