Tables

Yes we did this in a sort of a rhyming way. Slightly off subject but I was chatting to a 7 year old the other day who told me that he knew 'absolutely everything in the whole world'. I replied 'Do you?' He said 'Yes. Well, apart from some of my times tables'

They were still reciting them and playing related games when I was working in school 5yrs ago.

Remember the exercise books with all the times tables printed on the back, also the 30 days hath September rhyme?

I think they've come back into fashion again. I was 'supporting' DGD last night with her maths homework and a lot of that was table based.

I did throughout my teaching career. You need instant recall.

Numberplease, I remember the back pages too. Not only tables, but measurements of length with chains rods and perches and weights too, as well as liquid measurements and such like. Very handy in pre decimal days!

CDs in the car still happen for my GCs. Of course when mine were little we had tapes in the car, charts on the wall, and I don't think it's much different now.

What about log tables and slide rules?

I hated those.

Now we've gone metric, are they the 10X tables rather than the 12X?

I love that I remember all my tables. It comes in so useful

When the animals left the ark, Noah said 'go forth and multiply'
Two snakes replied 'we can't, we're adders!'
So he made them log tables!

Nobody will bother with 12 anymore. 12 inches to the foot, 12 pennies in a shilling all gone now. Ten is the new twelve!

Can 20 be the new 16 in dress size?

My grandchildren still learn up to 12. The higher you can go the better for ease of use. It's also handy to teach them tricks for the 11x table, and to teach them square numbers.

And slightly off kilter
BE AUT I...FUL
That is the way, we learn to spell.

If 10 was made the new 60, perhaps we might get the decimal clock off the ground second time around.

Many years ago when I was a croupier I had to learn the 17 & 35 times table.

Every day in primary school we had mental arithmetic. It certainly encouraged quick thinking. Another exercise was called - I think - numeration. The teacher would read out a number and we had to write it as numbers. For example thirteen thousand five hundred and twenty seven = 13,527. By the time we reached the top class we were subjected to the millions!

How to multiply by drawing lines

Very interesting. My father would have loved that.

My mum made a small times table booklet thing and put string through it and hung it at the side of the toilet so that when we went on the throne we had to go through it and learn them. Got both me and my brother to grammar schools though and now, as I sit these days very comfortably with my book on the loo, I can blame it on my mother!

Thanks bags, I shall now spend the rest of this afternoon doing long and algebraic multiplication. Mr absent is also absolutely fascinated.

I can't wait to show the grandchildren – well, maybe not the two-year-old.