84. What’s an easier way to learn multiplication tables?

If you have a multiplication chart, it looks like you have 144 squares to memorize. That sounds hard.

Let’s make it easier: 66 are duplicates. Cross those out. That leaves 78 problems.

Then we can learn 11 rules. I’ve gone from the easiest rules the harder rules (roughly). The rules are color-coded based on the table above. /

  • Orange: 1s. Identity rule
  • Light green: 10s. Add a zero
  • Light blue: Easy 11s. The digit twice
  • Red: 2s. Double the number or skip-count by 2s.
  • Yellow: 5s. Skip-count by 5s
  • Gray: 3s. Skip-count by 3s
  • Purple: 9s. There is a finger shortcut OR digit minus 1 and both digits added together equal 9.
  • Aqua: 4s. Double the number and then double that answer.
  • Dark blue: 12s. Times by 10 and times by 2 and add the answers together.
  • Gold: Hard 11s. When you have any two-digit number times 11, you can put the first digit in the number in the hundreds place. Put the last digit of the number in the ones place. Add the digits together and that’s the tens place.
  • Dark green: When you have 6 times a single-digit even number (2,4,6,8), the answer is that number divided in half for the tens digit and the number itself for the ones digit.

Then you have to memorize the black ones. That is only 5 problems.

We took 144 things to memorize and turned it into 16 things to remember. Sounds easier to me.

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