Oh, lettucepatchkids, you are right as the type of drills you describe are a drudgery while Charlotte Mason’s teaching was living. She had a few key ideas surrounding tables and facts.
Each line of the addition table was first proven in the concrete and exercised upon with the aid of objects, then imaginary objects (beans laid out on the table but your questions are about sheep, cars, cousins, etc.), then exercised in pure number, until the child can answer without looking at the beans (or coins, etc.).
As always, habits and ideas are important. 5-10 minutes of rapid mental work given either at the end of the lesson or at a different time will reinforce and cement those math facts while nurturing habits such as concentration, fixed attention, promptness, etc.
Questions are lively, interesting and engaging before moving on to abstract number. For example, which would be more interesting to a child?
“3+4=? Or “How old will your little brother be in four years?” Note: always get a full sentence for each question, whether using abstract numbers or things by asking “why?” if need be. The child knows his little brother, Luca, is three years old so: “three years plus four years equals seven years” or “3 + 4 = 7.” These engaging word problems would then progress to oral work with abstract numbers.
You can see how the addition/subtraction tables were worked out in the concrete on pp. 24-25 of the SCM math handbook, point #11 and the chapter on Mental Arithmetic and Oral Work. Multiplication/Division tables begin on p. 34 of the handbook. Sessions in the dvd to watch are:
Addition and Subtraction Tables
Mental Arithmetic
Multiplication
Constructing Multiplication Tables
These will show just how everything would look. You’ll see that they little resemble what we think of as “tables” in our own experience or what is focused upon today.
Ambleside’s lecturer in mathematics stated:
There is no royal road to the multiplication table; it must be learnt by heart. This is a fact which faces every teacher of elementary arithmetic, and which each must prepare for in the best way possible (Irene Stephens, The Teaching of Mathematics to Young Children. p. 10).
You will see in the dvd the “best way possible” to prepare for it. Though we can, of course, go on to lead our lives without learning to say our math facts quickly, the greater goals in a Charlotte Mason education is the discipline and ideas put into place by her methods in these areas. You will also greatly ease frustration either when going on into the next step of working with fractions or when beginning Algebra. It’s really a gift to give our children firm ground to stand upon.
Best,
Richele
