"The Fours!" cried Fred. "We have to learn the Fours!"
"That shouldn't be too hard," Frog told him.
"The Fours are a bit like the Twos, and we can do them."
"Oh yes, the Twos are easy!" said Fred.
"So how do we learn the Fours?
I suppose if they are like the Twos, they will all be even!"
"That's right. Let's start off by counting by fours."
Off they went.
Four, eight, twelve,
sixteen, twenty,
twenty four, twenty eight,
thirty two, thirty six and forty!
"Well, that's not hard," they both agreed.
And they're all even numbers, which makes it easier to remember."
"I'll go first," said Frog.
"One lot of four is four and
two fours are eight!" Fred went on.
"Three fours are twelve and
four fours are sixteen."
"Five fours are twenty," they both said together.
"Whew!" said Frog. "They're big numbers!"
"Can we go on?" said Fred.
"I know all the rest. Listen to me."
"All right," said Frog,
"but I want to say ten times four, okay?"
"Okay," Fred agreed.
"Six fours are twenty four,
seven fours are twenty eight,
eight fours are thirty two,
nine fours are thirty six."
"And TEN FOURS ARE FORTY!" shouted Frog.
Then they wrote the Four Times Table out.
It looked like this:
1 x 4 = 4
2 x 4 = 8
3 x 4 = 12
4 x 4 = 16
5 x 4 = 20
6 x 4 = 24
7 x 4 = 28
8 x 4 = 32
9 x 4 = 36
10 x 4 = 40
"Can you see a pattern?" asked Frog.
Fred looked at the Four Times Table.
"Oh, yes!" he said. "I can!"
Can you see the pattern in the answers?
Yes, it goes 4, 8, 2, 6, 0, 4, 8, 2, 6, 0
Count by fours again.
Say the Four Times Table again. Then you can try these.
Be careful because they are all jumbled up.
2 x 4 =6 x 4 =
9 x 4 =
7 x 4 =
1 x 4 =
5 x 4 =
8 x 4 =
10 x 4 =
3 x 4 =
4 x 4 =
"Hey, look at this," cried Fred.
"Look what I've done. I did the Four Times Table again
but I put the numbers around the other way."
4 x 1 = 4
4 x 2 = 8
4 x 3 = 12
4 x 4 = 16
4 x 5 = 20
4 x 6 = 24
4 x 7 = 28
4 x 8 = 32
4 x 9 = 36
4 x 10 = 40
"Oh, yeah," said Frog. "They're just the same.
So we didn't learn just the fours,
we learnt some of the other tables as well.
That's going to save us time when we have to do the others. Clever!"
"Of course!"
Fred and Frog were very pleased with themselves.
If you can get all your Four Times Tables right
you can be pleased with yourself, too.
But if you don't know them yet
you need some more practice. Here are some creepy crawlies
to help you with your Fours:
