There is no Royal Road to the multiplication table. It must be learned by heart.

This is a fact which faces every teacher of elementary arithmetic, and which each must prepare for in the best way possible.

These words were spoken by Irene Stevens, the head of the mathematics department for Charlotte

Mason's school.

The term Royal Road means an easy path, one free from any difficulty.

So how do we prepare the learning of multiplication tables in the best way possible? As always, Charlotte Mason had a plan.

Hello, I'm Rochelle Babordana. Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast. Today, we're going to take a look at Charlotte's

approach to learning the multiplication tables and when to advance to the next table or a new

concept. You probably won't be surprised to hear that Charlotte's approach to multiplication facts and

written tables is distinctive. This is no kill and drill. Rather, her best way possible allows a child

to discover patterns, investigate how numbers behave and relate with each other, while also advancing certain ideas,

such as multiplication as repeated addition, or division as the complement of multiplication.

If you're listening to the audio version of this podcast, you might want to take a look at the video, which is linked in the show notes, so that you can see what I'm talking about.

We begin with the idea of multiplication as repeated addition.

You will need a slate or dry erase board or gridded paper for yourself as well as a slate for each child.

Your child will also be using his coin bag full of pennies and dimes.

To begin, we will reinforce multiplication as repeated addition through simple, interesting problems, using

coins and other concrete objects.

You will be writing on the slate until you instruct your child to do so.

We begin with very simple questions where knowing the multiplication table isn't necessary.

Begin by saying, John had two cents and a friend gave him two cents more.

How many cents had he then?

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