numbers numbers and more numbers

Rex has continued to cruise through his times tables.  He has worked his way all the way through the 20's this month ending with his x30s (0-9).....most days completing his new mad minute number on the first try.

I can't completely understand how his brain does it but I have watched him do it day after day and it's pretty cool.  Usually when we were starting a new number I would just write down the new number times tables say x27s  0-9 and then have him tell me the answer.  Most of the time within seconds he would be writing the number down (correctly), while I was still working it out with cross multiplication on paper.  I would ask him how he gets the numbers so quickly without writing anything down?  Often he would say he remembered the answer to the times table the day before answer say....26x7....then he would just think what would 7 more be which he could almost instantly figure.    Once we wrote all the answers down, then I would usually ask him the times tables in order from 2-9 (didn't really need to review 0 and 1) and then back down again 9-1 while he was looking at the problems.  From that point on I would ask him the numbers again in order (with out him looking) and he would have all the answers memorized already!!  In all it might be 10 minutes and he'd have them memorized!  NUTS!  And of course because he is good at it he really enjoyed it and would want to do it the first thing everyday after school.  I would usually quiz him again before bed and then in the morning at breakfast before school

They don't have any more for him to do at this point so he is going to help other kids in the class struggling and also help his teacher grade papers of the lower number times tables. (which will hopefully help him to continually review the numbers)

He does start to forget the numbers after several days.....so it is a short term memory skill but still very much amazes me!!