🚀 Free printable CE2 summer workbook: the summer of multiplication tables

Ask any parent of a student CE2 (8-9 years old) what the unofficial summer program is, and the answer comes out in a sigh: multiplication tables. It's the big project of the year — the tables of 6, 7, 8, and 9 are all fresh, still shaky, and the next school year (CM1, for children around 8–9 years old) will consider them mastered by September. Rest assured: no intensive course is needed. A free printable CE2 summer workbook, twenty minutes a day and two or three well-chosen tips are enough to turn the chore into a game. In this guide: what to consolidate before CM1, the method to master the tables without tears, and immediate download of the workbook — no email address required.

Where to find a free printable CE2 summer workbook?

Let's start with the question that brought you here. The free Kidibook summer workbook downloads with one click, in PDF format: no form, no registration, no “full version” locked behind the third exercise. You print it at home, in black and white if you want to save ink, and the session can begin.

The printable format has another decisive advantage at 8 years old: the child really writes. They set down their multiplications, circle the verbs, cross out their mistakes — actions that anchor learning much better than dragging and dropping on a tablet. And you keep control over the pace: one page per day, printed as you go, rather than a big commercial workbook abandoned three-quarters done by the end of August.

What to review in CE2 before CM1?

CE2 completes cycle 2, the fundamental learning phase. In September, your child moves into cycle 3 (CM1, CM2, 6e), where the focus shifts from learning to read to reading in order to learn. What is consolidated this summer will therefore stay fixed for the rest of schooling. Here is the priority map, and the little ritual that maintains each.

Regarding duration, the right measure in CE2 is a single number: 20 minutes per day, four to five days a week. One workbook page, one oral game, and then close it. First, let a real week of decompression pass at the start of July — the brain also consolidates while resting.

How to master multiplication tables this summer?

Multiplication tables in CE2 are like decoding in CP (first grade): the automatic skill that conditions everything else. In CM1, they are used every day — written multiplications, divisions, fractions, problems. And summer is the perfect time to tame them: no test on Friday, no grade, the right to make mistakes and try again while laughing.

Review the multiplication tables in the correct order

First mistake to avoid: reciting the tables from 2 to 9 in order, every day. You exhaust yourself on what you already know. Start by checking the “easy” tables (2, 5, 10), then 3 and 4, and save your energy for the core of the work: 6, 7, 8 and 9. Second magical lever: commutativity. Since 7 × 8 gives the same result as 8 × 7, each new table is already half known. In reality, only a handful of results are truly tough — 6 × 7, 6 × 8, 7 × 8, 7 × 9, 8 × 9 — and it is on these that we focus the flash questions.

The 9 times table on fingers, step by step

This is the children’s favorite trick, and it involves three gestures. Place both hands flat in front of you, fingers spread. To calculate 9 × 7, fold down the 7th finger starting from the left. Then count the fingers still raised: 6 to the left of the folded finger, 3 to its right. Read the result: 63. It works for the entire table, from 9 × 1 to 9 × 10, and the child literally has the answer at their fingertips on the day they doubt.

Tips that hit the mark

For the last stubborn results, nothing beats a good mnemonic device. The most famous: 5, 6, 7, 8 — in other words 56 = 7 × 8, the sequence of numbers that gives the answer by itself. Squares almost sing themselves (6 × 6 = 36, 8 × 8 = 64), and the 6 times table is just the 3 times table doubled. We have gathered these tricks — and dozens more, from French to history — in our article on essential primary school mnemonics, and in illustrated paper version in Le Grand Livre des Pense-Bêtes, which many families keep handy until the last year of primary school (CM2).

Reading and grammar: summer French for CE2

Moving on to longer texts without losing track

At the end of CE2 (around 8-9 years old), decoding is mastered: the new challenge is called comprehension. Texts get longer, the first chapter books arrive, and some children read every word perfectly… without being able to retell the story. The summer remedy: ten minutes of reading per day, on a novel chosen by the child, then two questions — not an interrogation, a conversation. “Why did the hero do that? What do you think will happen next?” Reformulating, anticipating, giving opinions: this is exactly what the next school year (CM1, around 9-10 years old) will expect from them.

The nature of words, as a sorting game

In grammar, CE2 has introduced a key concept: the nature of words — noun, verb, adjective, determiner, pronoun. To maintain it without worksheets, turn it into a sorting game: in the bedtime book, the child hunts for adjectives on a page; in the car, each sign becomes a challenge (“boulangerie, what is that? a noun!”). In CM1, the function of words will be added — better that the nature has become a reflex.

Time and money: revisions that don’t feel like revisions

Good news: the two most concrete notions of CE2 are revised without a workbook, by living the summer. Reading the time on an analog clock — with the traps of “quarter to” and the minute hand — is practiced at every departure to the beach: “We leave at 10:40, where will the big hand be?” Add durations, heavily worked on in CE2: “The trip lasts 35 minutes, what time do we arrive?”

The change, money, is revised at the market. Give a 5 € bill, a mission (“two melons and the change”) and mental calculation happens naturally: adding prices, checking the change, converting cents. A child who has paid by themselves all summer approaches CM1 problems with a head start — and real pride.

The CE2 Kidibook summer workbook: immediate takeoff with Astro

There remains the question of fuel: motivation. At Kidibook, each level is an adventure, and CE2 embarks on the Space world alongsideAstro the robot. The tables become launch codes, the texts to read are logbooks, the coins are energy crystals to count to repair the ship. The child doesn’t “do their tables”: they head for the stars, and the 7 times table is just a mission step.

If the formula works, the Kidibook subscription (7 €/month) delivers a new adventure workbook every day, tailored for their class, from GS (final year of kindergarten, around 5-6 years old) to CM2 (final year of primary school, around 10-11 years old) — enough to keep the 20-minute ritual all summer. Prefer a real bound book to slip in the suitcase? The CE2 summer workbook in paper version is available from Kidibook Editions for €14.99, free shipping from €25 — practical for two, with the little brother’s or big sister’s notebook. And to continue the momentum after the start of school, the collection My Super Year turns the same ritual into 100 daily challenges that accompany the entire CM1 year.

In summary: the summer after CE2 has a clear goal — automated multiplication tables, established long reading, time and money skills in the pocket — and it takes 20 minutes a day. Download the free printable CE2 summer workbook, place the first page on the breakfast table, and let Astro start the engines. In September, your child will enter CM1 with their tables in the hold and the smile of a child who really had a vacation.