Multiplication chart

A chart a child fills in is worth more than a chart they are handed, and it is the same piece of paper. Working across a row is counting in that number; working down a column is the same facts from the other side; and the squares that stay empty longest are a map of exactly which tables to practice.

The completed grid is the second page, so one print gives both. It is worth pinning up: the diagonal from 1 to 144 is the square numbers, the grid is symmetrical about it — which is 7 × 8 and 8 × 7 being one fact, drawn — and the half above the diagonal is the only half anybody has to learn.

The answers were worked out when the problems were, so the key is the same page with the answers drawn in rather than a second attempt at the same questions — there is no way for the two to disagree. The number in the footer is the seed the sheet was built from: it is printed so that the identical sheet can be had again next week, rather than one that merely looks like it.

This page is one sheet out of a family that can print thousands, and the settings behind it — how many problems, how big the numbers get, how they are laid out, whether there is room to work — are all switches. The builder link at the top of the page carries this sheet’s own settings, so the bench opens on exactly the sheet here rather than on a blank one.

The configuration travels in the address bar rather than on a server, so the link can be bookmarked or sent to somebody as it stands — and what they open is this sheet, down to the seed, rather than another one like it.

The Grid is the same twelve-by-twelve square with a clock on it — the squares that stay blank longest here are the decks to race there.