Pippa closed the door quietly as she came into the workroom. She had heard Pauly say Veronika was going to help him with something, but she didn’t know what. Pippa was a very curious doll, so she had to go and find out.
She found Veronika holding up a small piece of paper.
Pauly was looking at it. The card had “9 X 3” on it.
Pippa knew that nine times three was twenty-seven. She knew without even using the trick for the nines in the times tables.
Pippa knew that when you took any number more than one and multiplied it times nine you get two numbers: a ones column and a tens column, unless that number was one.
Her favorite trick was to take one away from the number you’re multiplying nine by. That gives you the number in the tens column. That was the first part of ten, twenty and all the way up to ninety.
For nine times three, you would take one away from the three. That would give you a two in the tens column. So the answer was twenty something.
9 X 3 = 2?
The other part of the trick is that the two numbers in the answer have to add up to nine. What do you add to two to get nine? Two plus seven equals nine. That means the answer is twenty-seven.
9 X 3 = 27
Pippa had used this trick so many times, she no longer had to use it. She just knew that nine times three was twenty-seven.
She could see that Pauly was thinking very hard.
Pippa wanted to help. Also, she was proud that she knew the answer. She wanted Veronika to be proud of her, too.“Twenty-seven,” she said. “Nine times three is twenty-seven.”
“Twenty-seven,” Pauly said.
Pippa noticed that Veronika didn’t seem pleased. Twenty-seven was right, she knew. What could be making Veronika unhappy?
Veronika turned the piece of paper around. It had “27” on the other side. “Twenty-seven is correct,” Veronika said.
Veronika put that piece of paper down. She picked up another one. It had “4 X 3” on it. “How much is this one?” she asked Pauly.
“Twelve!” Pippa exclaimed.
Veronika turned the paper around. On the back was “12.”
Then Veronika put the stack of little papers down. “Pippa,” she said evenly, “I know that you know the times tables backwards and forwards. You can give us the right answer for each of these.” She pointed at the stack of cards.
“Pauly started school late, though,” Veronika continued. “He has some catching up to do. He’s a smart doll, but this is one of the things that is difficult for him.”
“There are no other dolls at my house,” Pauly told Pippa, “only Bye-bye, the bear, and he doesn’t go to school and doesn’t know the times tables, so Veronika said she would help.”
“Billy helped make these flash cards,” Veronika explained.
“Pauly can take them home when he goes, so he can practice any time.”
“Bye-bye can’t hold paper in his paws,” Pauly said, “and it’s nice to have someone else hold them up. If I’m by myself, I start thinking about other things. Veronika is helping me!”
“To learn, though,” Veronika continued, “Pauly has to do it for himself. It’s nice to want to help, but the best way you can do that is to wait for him to think about it and come up with the answer on his own. We should only give him the answer if the one he comes up is wrong, or he gives up.”
“Or if I guess right,” Pauly pointed out, because he was starting to get some of them right now.
Veronika agreed. Then she thought for a moment. “I have an idea,” she said.
The other two dolls looked at Veronika.
“Pippa, why don’t you hold up the cards for Pauly?” Veronika asked. “That way you can help him, but don’t show him the answer until he either guesses wrong,” she said, and then looking at Pauly, “or guesses right.”
“That will be fun!” Pippa exclaimed, taking the cards. “It will be like I’m the teacher!”
As Veronika left the room, she smiled as she heard Pippa say, “I know this great trick for the nines!”
Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni
"The Doll's Storybook" is not affiliated with Gotz Dolls USA Inc. or Götz Puppenmanufaktur International GmbH.
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Copyright © 2023, 2024 by Peggy Stuart
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