Time to Measure Up!

We used, "Measure Up" in the title of this blog post because we're pleased to announce that some of the worksheets on the Measurement Page at Math-Drills.com were updated. A few other updates were also made that we outline below.

Temperature Worksheets

The converting Celsius and Fahrenheit worksheets were all updated and a couple of new ones made their way into the mix. For some reason, we previously overlooked making versions of the Celsius to Fahrenheit and Fahrenheit to Celsius worksheets that included negatives. We fixed that oversight, of course.

You might also like the "Temperature Conversion Guide" (pictured to the left) that we created to help students understand this topic. The page includes four different ways to convert temperature: using a table of benchmarks, using a visual thermometer, using a graph, and using formulas. There are also a few standard temperatures that students might like to know to impress their parents and friends.

Time Worksheets

The new elapsed time worksheets expand our collection from one choice to twelve choices including intervals of 1, 5 and 15 minutes, and 1, 5, and 15 seconds. In addition, there are choices of short elapsed times (up to 5 hours) and longer elapsed times (up to 24 hours).

Converting Between Inches and Centimeters

We originally set out to update the original worksheet in this section, then got side-tracked thinking that not all students would be able to use a formula to convert between inches and centimeters. Instead, we added some conversion worksheets that ask students to use rulers to perform the conversion. The rulers are conveniently printed at the top of the worksheet and arranged so that the inches and centimeters line up with each other. Using any sort of straight-edged object should have students converting in no time.

Another feature of these worksheets is that the rulers should print out to be actual size, so you can cut out the rulers to use for measuring objects. Because of the variety of printers and "fit to page" options, however, we can't guarantee that they will be exact for you.

Metric Conversion

All of the Metric conversion worksheets were re-made and a couple of new ones added, specifically for converting milligrams and grams and converting grams and kilograms. These worksheets are useful for students who are learning the Metric System or for a practical application of multiplying and dividing by powers of ten. They might be applicable to many science classes as well.

Some of the old worksheets had conversion information at the top of the page. We removed that from the new versions and created a "Metric System Conversion Guide" instead. The guide replaces the help text that was on the old worksheets with a more comprehensive overview that might help students put things into perspective rather than remembering individual conversions. The guide was made for elementary students, so it might not cover everything that a middle school or high school teacher might like covered.

Other Updated Worksheets

We received a couple of requests for specific multiplication and division worksheets focusing on key groups of facts, so we made them! For anyone who may also teach multiplication and division using these key groups of facts, you might be interested to know that we have added worksheets for multiplying with 0, 1, 2, 5, 10, multiplying with 3, 4, 6, multiplying with 7, 8, 9, and multiplying with 11, 12. Division worksheets were also added for these groups of facts although the division version of the first group excludes 0 since we all know that you can't divide by zero!

Some people were having issues with some of the addition worksheets printing answers on both the question and answer pages. We haven't identified the circumstances that would cause this to happen, but we did identify which worksheets were causing this to happen, so we've started to replace them with versions that won't cause the same issue. One example of updated worksheets can be found in the Three-Digit Addition section. We appreciate very much when our users take the time to send us information about things that don't work or have errors on them, so we can fix them for everyone!

Thanks for subscribing to our blog! If you would like to know about worksheet updates the moment they happen, you can follow our New Worksheet Announcements board on Pinterest or follow @MathDrills on Twitter as we are now trying to post our Pinterest updates in parallel on Twitter.

Subtraction Distraction

This past week, we were distracted with the subtraction worksheets page.  A number of new worksheets and some old ones were revised.

Subtraction Tables

We approached the new subtraction tables in two different ways. The first was to make them look a lot like the division tables we created a few months back. These come in a variety of options including, color, grey, and one version that includes 13 pages where one difference is highlighted on each page. All of these options are available in facts from 0 to 11 and facts from 1 to 12.

The second approach was to make the subtraction facts into a grid. This is something we couldn't do with division tables because of the variety and number of dividends possible. With subtraction though, it was fairly easy to accomplish because there is a limited range of minuends. Because these are meant for younger students who are learning their subtraction facts, we "grayed" out the negative numbers. These tables come in filled and blank versions.

Five Minute Subtraction Frenzy Charts

You might be familiar with our addition and multiplication five minute frenzies. Well, we finally made some for subtraction. These are wonderful tools for practicing subtraction facts, but they should not be used with students who don't know their subtraction facts yet. For students who are still learning their facts, have them only fill in the rows for facts they do know. For students who know all of their facts, one activity you can try is to see if they can improve their time by spending a few minutes on one each day.

Multi-Digit Subtraction

The multi-digit subtraction section already existed, but we re-made the worksheets and added some more. The most notable improvement is that there are now "All" links for these worksheets. Some teachers and parents like the "All" link especially if they are planning on working on the same skill for a number of days and will need a number of worksheets to support the learning strategy they use. For those of you who still have an attachment to the "Old" versions of these worksheets, they are included as "Old" links.

All of the new multi-digit subtraction worksheets, of course do not have an "Old" link, so you can see we've added quite a bit on the page. There are now options for five-digit numbers, SI formats (Canada and other countries that use Metric number formatting), and Euro formats (e.g. Germany) where the thousands separator is a point rather than a comma.

Subtracting Across Zeros

Also a new section, the Subtracting Across Zeros a.k.a. Finding Complements section was added this week with a number of options. There are two categories... one where the zeros are part of a power of ten only (e.g. 10, 100, 1000), and one where the zeros are part of a multiple of a power of ten (e.g. 30, 800, 2000). We would recommend looking into some strategies other than "borrowing" to teach this skill as it would be useful to be able to complete subtraction questions mentally. In this case, it is quite easy with a little practice. One subtraction strategy that we've promoted before is "counting up". Counting up means that you start with the subtrahend (the number being subtracted) and count up to the minuend (the first number). For example, 1000 - 365 would work something like this: count up 5 to 370, count up 30 to 400 and count up 600 to 1000. The total amount counted up was 5 + 30 + 600 = 635 which is the difference (our answer). Now isn't that a little easier than crossing off zeros and borrowing?

These worksheets are also called Finding Complements because that is essentially what you do with them, except with the multiples of powers of ten, you must additionally "count up" the largest place value in the minuend. Finding complements has a number of applications including solving more difficult subtraction questions.

We hope that you find the new and revised subtraction worksheets useful. Thank you for choosing Math-Drills.com and please let us know if you have any comments or have an idea for a new math worksheet to add to the website. We appreciate very much when you share the website address or our worksheets with others, so thank you to all those who do that! If you are able to help promote our website by adding us to Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, or Pinterest, we have placed easy to use links on our new Social Pages section.

Geometry, Number, Integers, Algebra and Multiplication Requests

Recently, we had a number of varied requests for new math worksheets, and we were happy to oblige every one of them. If you follow our New Worksheet Announcements board on Pinterest, you may have already seen the new worksheets. If you have a request of your own, please don't be shy... drop us a note.

Geometry

Two different people actually asked for some eighth grade dilations worksheets, so we added a couple new ones and marked the existing one as "old" as the new ones replace it. The reason we leave the "old" ones around is because there is invariably someone who relies on that exact version to be around. Believe us, we've heard the complaints after removing something from the website! The two new dilations worksheets both have dilation factors of up to 4 or inversely down to 1/4, but one version uses only the origin as the dilation center, and the other version has various centers.

Number

We had a request actually quite a while ago for 120 charts that count backwards and some counting backwards worksheets starting with numbers up to 120. At the time, we made them and sent them off to the person who requested them, but we just got around to adding them onto the website. Hopefully, other educators and students will benefit from this fulfilled request.

Integers

This one started off as a request for an "All" link on our Integers Worksheets -- All Operations, but after we looked at the antiquated worksheets we had there, we went a little crazy and not only added the "All" link, but re-made the worksheets and added many other options including more ranges of integers and the option to have parentheses around all integers, just the negatives, or no parentheses.

Algebra

On the algebra page, we added an equalities worksheet that uses symbols for unknowns. Basically, students look at the two addition questions on either side of an equal sign, one of which includes an unknown, and they figure out what value for the unknown symbol makes the equation true. A number of ranges were included for these worksheets and would be a nice activity for students who are good at mental addition and need an extra challenge.

Multiplication

And lastly, we had a request for worksheets that focus on "Anchor Facts" for multiplication, specifically, multiplying by 0, 1, 2, 5 and 10. The other factor was requested to have a range of 1 to 12, so you will find them in the Multiplication Facts to 144 section.

That's it for this update; we hope you like the new math worksheets and use them to help students learn math. If you like our free math worksheets, please share the website address with teachers, parents, and other educators.

Adding Doubles

We thought you might like to know that the adding doubles worksheets were upgraded today. There used to be a limited choice of worksheets for using the adding doubles strategy. Now, you can find these worksheets in their own category on the Addition Page.

http://www.math-drills.com/addition.shtml#double

There are currently three ranges of numbers which we've called: small, medium, and large. The small worksheets basically cover the numbers from 0 to 9 although depending on the variation (e.g. Adding Doubles Plus 2), you might find numbers up to 11 on the page. The medium range includes numbers from 1 to 15 and may include numbers up to 17 on some of the variations. The large range includes numbers from 1 to 30 and may include numbers up to 32.

The nice thing about these worksheets is that we've controlled the repetition, so you will not see one question a number of times and another question not appear on the page. On the small range worksheets, each column of ten questions contains unique questions. On the medium range, each question appears twice, and on the large range, each question appears only once.

As with a number of math skills, we've chunked this skill into smaller bits for those who need it. The mixed variations worksheet, included in each range, allows students who understand the adding doubles strategy to apply it flexibly depending on how the two addends compare.

These worksheets were added thanks to a user's suggestion. If you have an idea for a math worksheet that you would like us to make, please contact us by replying to this email/post.

Probability, Adding Complements and Divisibility Rules

What do the following things have in common: probability, adding complements and divisibility rules? These are all new math worksheets at Math-Drills.com!

Probability

Probability is actually a new section on the Data Management and Probability Worksheets page even though it has had "probability" in its name for quite some time. We decided to start with some probabilities with dice and spinners and included several options for both. For the sum of two dice probabilities worksheets, you can choose between a version without a helpful table or with a helpful table. For the spinners, we've included worksheets with between 4 and 12 sections. Instead of using colors, we used numbers on the spinner as we know many people have black and white printers and it also helps to distinguish between the sections, especially if there are 12 sections on a spinner.

Since it is Halloween season, we thought a Halloween probability math worksheet would be a good idea, so we made a set of them asking students what the probabilities are of getting certain candies while trick-or-treating. We also added a slightly more difficult version where students have to predict how many candies of each type they would get based on how many houses they visited.

Adding Complements

Adding Complements is an interesting skill as it challenges students to find or know what numbers add together to make certain complements. The most common ones are powers of ten (e.g. 10, 100, 1000) and powers of ten minus one (e.g. 9, 99, 999). This has all sorts of wonderful benefits in a student's repertoire of math skills. For example, in subtraction, using a counting up strategy is so much easier if students are familiar with complements of powers of ten. In the question, 1532 - 437, a student can find the 1000 complement of 437 and add it to 532 to find the answer. They could find the difference in other ways too, but knowing the 1000 complements makes this a two-step problem and can be done mentally. In money management, giving change for, say a 10 dollar bill, is made much easier knowing complements because it is simply a matter of finding the 1000 complement for the money amount without the decimal. For example, what change would you get from a 10 Pound note if the total bill was £4.54? Since the 1000 complement of 454 is 546, the change would be £5.46.

Divisibility Rules

Divisibility rules are sometimes overlooked as some people don't see much value in them, but they certainly do help students to understand numbers and patterns much better. Is there not some little joy or fascination in being able to tell whether a 10 digit number is divisible by 4 just by looking at the last two digits? In practice, divisibility rules are quite useful in things like prime factorization, finding factors of a number, long division, and fractions (e.g. simplifying fractions).

To help you break up this skill a little, we've grouped the divisibility rules into several sets. First, we put 2, 5 and 10 together. For the uninitiated, we've included the divisibility rules below where you will see that 2, 5 and 10 are quite straight-forward and only require looking at the last digit of the number. 3, 6 and 9 is our second group where you have to do a little more work to figure out whether a number is divisible by one of these.... but not too much work. The final group is 4, 7 and 8. We included 4 here only because it needed a place to go and we thought we would keep each set with three numbers. The 7 and 8 are normally the difficult ones, and these can be assessed with a calculator too if your students have great difficulty with the rules.

You might also notice we made some versions with random divisibility rules from 2 to 10 on each page. Just find the ones that work for your lesson.

Divisibility of 2, 5 and 10

A number is divisible by 2 if the final digit (the digit in the ones place) is even. Numbers ending in 0, 2, 4, 6, or 8 therefore are divisible by 2.

A number is divisible by 5 if the final digit is a 0 or a 5.

A number is divisible by 10 if the final digit is a 0.

Divisibility of 3, 6 and 9

A number is divisible by 3 if the sum of its digits is divisible by 3. For example, 285 is divisible by 3 because 2 + 8 + 5 = 15 is divisible by 3.

A number is divisible by 6 if it is divisible by both 3 and 2 (see above rules).

A number is divisible by 9 if the sum of its digits is divisible by 9. For examples, 285 is not divisible by 9 because 2 + 8 + 5 = 15 is not divisible by 9.

Divisibility of 4, 7 and 8

A number is divisible by 4 if the last two digits of the number is divisible by 4. For larger two digit numbers, you can also take the 100 complement to make it a little easier. For example 694 is not divisible by 4 since the 100 complement of 94 is 6 and 6 is not divisible by 4. (Look at that, we found a great use for 100 complements!)

For 7, there are a couple of strategies to use, but since we don't know one off the top of our heads, we're going to send you to Divisibility Math Tricks to Learn the Facts instead of just copying someone else's work.

A number is divisible by 8 if the last three digits are divisible by 8. This is the standard rule which can be a little sketchy for larger numbers, like who knows if 680 is divisible by 8? Because of this, we offer our Math-Drills.com solution which requires a little arithmetic, but can be accomplished quite easily with a little practice. As you know 8 is 2 to the third power, so we thought if you could divide the last three digits of a number by 2 three times, it would be divisible by 8. 680 ÷ 2 ÷ 2 ÷ 2 = 340 ÷ 2 ÷ 2 = 170 ÷ 2 = 85. We have a winner! 680 is indeed divisible by 8.

We hope you enjoy our latest math worksheets and encourage you to send us a request if there is something that you would like to see on the website.

Social Pages and Privacy

Over the years, Math-Drills.com has tried a number of social platforms and we've kind of settled on a few.... for now... until something else comes along. We thought you might like to learn about our efforts to keep you informed through social media, and maybe, just maybe, teach you a thing or two about your online privacy. First of all, here in a particular order (from our most recommended to our least recommended), is what we log into.

Blogger is our preferred venue for a number of reasons. First, you can read our posts in three different ways: by signing up for our email list, by subscribing to our blog feed, or by visiting the actual blog itself. Most of you, will actually be reading this in an email or via a feed rather than on the actual blog website. One huge advantage of blogger, is that we don't have to limit our posts to 140 characters or silly things like that. We can explain, show and discuss our posts thoroughly. We can also post something in 140 characters or less if we choose to. If you read our blog, you will know about all updates and get (hopefully) interesting news and other posts. Reading our blog does not require you to register, have an account or otherwise give out any personal information if you visit the online version at:

http://blog.math-drills.com/

Pinterest was very new to us a few months ago, but we saw the huge potential in this social sharing site that it is now our number two pick for the most useful way to enhance Math-Drills.com. We use it most often to share the useful math resources that we've found online and more importantly, to immediately announce new worksheets that are added to the website. If you are one of our many loyal users, you will probably appreciate the ability to stay up-to-date on new material that we add. By the way, we love it when users request new material, so don't be shy. Pinterest was actually a very good thing for us because it caused us to make improvements to the website that had other benefits such as thumbnail images in searches, better search results, and the ability to share images of our math worksheets on Pinterest and other social websites. Another great advantage to Pinterest is that you also do not need to have an account or register or give out any personal information to view our math worksheet updates or other boards. You do have to register if you would like to pin our content or follow our boards though. Here is a link to our boards:

http://pinterest.com/freemath/

We have a small crowd of Twitter users who follow us, so we usually tweet something when there is a new blog post or a new math worksheet. Once in a while we also tweet or retweet things on Twitter exclusively if we found the item there and thought it might be interesting to our followers. One disadvantage of Twitter is that our tweets can easily get lost in the steady flow of tweets. There is no need to register to see our tweets, just head over to this link:

http://twitter.com/mathdrills

Google+ seemed like it was going to catch on quite nicely since there are so many Google users out there, but we haven't seen the crowds other places have. We are still sticking it out though and posting the occasional Google+ exclusive and always posting links to new blog posts. You don't need to register to see our Google+ page, but you will to interact or put us in your circles. Join us at Google+ at the following link:

https://plus.google.com/111836579110801042148/posts

And finally, we have arrived at Facebook, sadly at the bottom of our list. Facebook used to be our #1 sharing place, but they have unfortunately done a few things to make it very difficult to continue supporting them. Their very questionable privacy issues aside, they are now asking for real money, and a lot of it, to "promote" posts. If you don't pay to promote your post, they only show the post to around 15 to 20 percent of people who have liked the page. As an example, we have 2270 likes as of this blog post, and only 308 people saw our last Facebook post. If we had paid them some money, more people would have seen it. We have chosen not to pay them a cent. Despite their new way of operating, we still post things to Facebook... the occasional Facebook exclusive post and always a link to new blog posts. The good news is that we have made our posts public, so you don't have to log in to see them if you visit our page directly at:

https://www.facebook.com/freemath

Your Privacy

Some of you may be aware of the EU Cookie Law which we think is a wonderful thing especially for people who don't know a great deal about their online privacy. We were inspired by the new law to further protect the privacy of our users, even though our home is in Canada and most of our users are in the United States. We updated our privacy policy to include more information about cookies and changed a few other things, so you would be subjected to even less tracking than ever. For example, our Share/Save link that you can find on all of our pages is a simple image and a simple link. No cookies, no tracking, no privacy issues at all. When you click on the share/save button, though, some information is needed in order to process the request, and this is done through the Lockerz Share service. If you are interested in more information about your privacy, please do read our privacy policy and/or perform a search, but be careful, all those search engines are watching you!

We actually appreciate websites that aren't full of advertisements, videos, pop-ups, fancy social sharing buttons, etc. since they are much easier to navigate through, they load faster and they aren't full of privacy issues. We try to provide you with the same things that we appreciate. We figure if it isn't necessary, why include it.

Whenever we make updates to the Math-Drills.com website, we like to test it out in the four main browsers (IE, FF, Chrome and Safari). We did notice that the most recent Safari browser (5.1.7 for Windows 7) made it really easy to change privacy and security settings. They even tell you about the cookies that are being stored and give you a one button method to remove or block cookies. If you are concerned about your privacy, we think that you might want to check out Safari while the other browsers catch up.

That's it for now. We hope you have discovered a little bit more about how you can stay up-to-date on Math-Drills.com, how we are working to protect your privacy and what you can do to further protect your privacy. Have a great week!

New Halloween Math Worksheets

For some of you, it is the time of year when things get a little more spooky. Luckily, you can always head over to Math-Drills.com for a few Halloween items that will help students with their math skills. This week, a few new Halloween Math Worksheets were added to the website. Here is a quick description of each.

1. A second "Spider Web Angle Measuring" worksheet. The first version and this worksheet were moved from the Halloween Geometry to the Halloween Measurement section.

2. One-, two-, three-, and four-digit addition worksheets, named, "Through the Dark Forest" and decorated with scary trees were included in the Addition and Subtraction Section.

3. An original coordinate point plotting activity called, "Cartesian Art Jack-o'-Lantern" was also created and was designed with the older student in mind, mainly because of the scope of the numbers and the number of points involved.

As usual, if you have any suggestions for new math worksheets for the Halloween page or any other page, please let us know by replying to or commenting on this post.

Canadian Thanksgiving

Since Thanksgiving in Canada is this weekend, we doubled the number of worksheets available on our Thanksgiving Math Worksheets page today! Of course, those of you in the U.S. will benefit a little later in November. Perhaps we'll get around to making even more choices by then. Please feel free to send us a suggestion if there is something you'll be working on in November.

New Thanksgiving Math Worksheets

1. We added four versions of a sorting/ordering worksheet based on the newest version on the number sense page. For this one, though, we added some turkeys and pumpkins and some units of measure. So, instead of just sorting random numbers, students now sort the masses of turkeys or pumpkins in lbs or kgs (your choice).

2. There are five new picture patterning worksheets. The most basic one is for sorting shapes. We chose four shapes that we thought would represent Thanksgiving and put them all on the same page. There are also picture patterns with two attributes in various combinations: shape/size, shape/rotation, and size/rotation. For an extra challenge, try the three attribute version with shape/size/rotation all mixed together. Note that it is possible that there is more than one answer to each pattern, so a suggested answer is given on the answer keys.

3. The third and final type of worksheet we added is a ratio worksheet in two versions. The first is comparing only part to part ratios which is suitable for younger children. The second type also includes part to whole ratios for more advanced children.

The images on these worksheets are all from http://openclipart.org/ which is a great place to get quality images for own projects.

For all those in Canada who are celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend, enjoy your day off, family, friends, and good times and thanks for visiting Math-Drills.com for all your math worksheet needs.

Improvements to Math Worksheets Search

Many of the changes we made to our math worksheet pages were to improve your ability to search for our math worksheets successfully. Today, we further improved the functionality of the search page by including image searching and blog searching.

If you are a regular user of our search box at Math-Drills.com, you may have noticed that the search results now include thumbnails of our worksheets. Instead of seeing all of the text, you can now view only the images by clicking on the "Image" tab and the "Math-Drills.com Only" tab. Here is an example to illustrate using the search, "halloween."

Click on the image to see a larger version.

As you can see, thumbnails of worksheets that contain the search word, "halloween" are shown and you can visually select the one that you want.

We also added an extra tab, so you can search the Math-Drills Blog only.

We hope you like the new functionality and find our search page useful. Have a wonderful weekend!

New Math Worksheets this Week

At Math-Drills.com, we hope that your September is going well and that you are enjoying learning and teaching math as much as we do.

Thanks to our users, we have created some new math worksheets this week that you might find useful.

Graphing Linear Equations

We started off by playing around with some of the graphing features in OpenOffice and came up with a worksheet for graphing linear equations that are in the slope-intercept form. For those of you familiar with this equation form, graphing is made quite easy because the equation contains the y-intercept value and the slope information (rise over run)

Later in the week, we thought that we should also include some worksheets that do the opposite, i.e. students would find the equation in slope-intercept form from the already drawn graph.

You can find both of these new worksheets on the Algebra page under the heading: Graphing Linear Equations.

One Step Equations

Also on our Algebra page, are some new one step equations worksheets. Depending on how you teach this topic, they might be one or more steps. The main feature of these worksheets is that they include no coefficients on the unknowns and there are only two other terms, both numbers. Basically, the one step comes into play when you mentally try to think of the number that makes the equation true. You may also teach this in two or three steps where students subtract or add the same number to both sides of the equation to isolate the unknown, then solve the other side of the equation. A third step might come into play if the isolated unknown ends up with a negative sign.

Equivalent Fractions

We've had equivalent fractions worksheets on the website for years, but someone suggested we also have worksheets to identify whether two fractions are equivalent or not. In order to accomplish this, we made a page of pairs for fractions and ask students to check the ones that are equivalent. We haven't made it overly easy as the two numerators and the two denominators are always multiples. Sometimes, the numerator and denominator are multiplied by different numbers which makes the pair of fractions unequal. See if your students can find all of the equivalent fractions without getting messed up!

Plotting Coordinate Points

As with the previous two additions, this math worksheet was a result of a request from one of our users. He wanted worksheets where students would plot coordinate points, but only in positive x quadrants or in positive y quadrants, so we made them, of course. You can find these gems on the Geometry page under Coordinate Point Geometry.

Distributive Property in Algebra

Also a request from one of our users, the distributive property is used in algebra to simplify expressions. If students are learning this important concept, then they can now use one of our worksheets under the heading Simplifying Algebraic Expressions on the Algebra page, of course.

Errors

We may have mentioned in the past that we aren't perfect which is why we like to hear from our users when we mess something up. Thanks to two attentive users, we managed to pinpoint and fix two minor errors that were on our math worksheets. If you notice something that needs fixing, please don't hesitate to let us know.

What are we adding today?

Something like this might be nice:

As always, enjoy your day!

Ratio and Proportion Worksheets

We made a slight change to the Fractions worksheets page today. The section formerly called, "Equivalent Fractions Worksheets" is now called, "Ratio and Proportion." Previously, there was only one type of worksheet in this section called, "Find the Missing Number." We changed the name of the worksheet to, "Equivalent Fractions." Hopefully, that isn't too confusing!

The good news is that we also added some other worksheets to this section. Because it is almost autumn, we decided to include a picture based ratio worksheet where students are asked to write ratios for autumn related images. There are two versions of this worksheet, one that only includes simple ratios (i.e. part to part ratios) and one that also includes part to whole ratios.

We also added some equivalent ratio worksheets both with blanks and with a variable x.

Enjoy the new math worksheets!

Coordinate Points and an Autumn Leaf

We just finished adding some coordinate point plotting math worksheets, and we thought we'd have a little fun as well, so we made some Cartesian art using the same concept. Instead of simply plotting the points, the art version challenges the student to plot the points in order and join them with line segments. We decided to go with a red maple leaf design since it is almost autumn and people in Canada might appreciate this since it is one of their national symbols. Enjoy the new math worksheets!

Do you have a specific graphic that you would like to see as Cartesian Art? Leave a comment below or reply to this message and we'll see what we can do.

Input/Output Tables

Also known as function tables, these delightful math staples are now available on Math-Drills.com.

Instead of splitting them up on five different pages, we put all of the input/output tables on the Mixed Operations page even though some of them are only dealing with one operation at a time.

We included a few nice features in the input/output tables. Each individual table is color-coded according to the operation used in the rule. On an addition only page, all of the tables have a grey center column. On mixed operations pages, the center columns are various colors (grey for addition, orange for subtraction, blue for multiplication and yellow for division).

Each input column includes a set of unique numbers, so there is no repetition.

We've also included a couple of versions of the worksheet where we've mixed up the blanks. Instead of only blanks in the output column, each table includes some blanks in both the input and output column. This may challenge a student to use a couple different strategies to complete each input/output table.

There are many other possibilities for input/output tables that we didn't include in this update, mainly because we like to hear from our users and produce math worksheets that they'll use. If you have a need for a specific type of input/output table, please let us know by commenting on or replying to this article. Perhaps you are a middle school teacher and need some tables with algebraic expressions as the rule, or maybe you'd like the input and output columns filled in, so the students have to find the rule. Perhaps you'd like to see integers or decimals. Don't be shy, let us know.

If you are in the U.S. or Canada, we hope you are having a relaxing Labor/Labour Day!

Back to School Special on Free Math Worksheets

With many of you already back to school or heading back to school very soon, we've decided to reduce the price of our free math worksheets by a further 50%. This should come as no surprise to our loyal customers as we like to reduce the price every year.

Here is a comparison of how our new prices look.

Last year, you paid $0 for our thousands of math worksheets, this year the price will be $0 x 0.50 = $0 for our thousands of math worksheets. We've also extended our deep discounts to include any currency, so if you use the Australian dollar, the Loonie, the Pound, the Euro or any other currency, just do the math... you'll find our math worksheets still cost nothing.

Not only have we reduced the price, we've added thousands more math worksheets since last year, so the savings are astronomical. As an additional bonus, we've reduced all of the geometry worksheets by 75% like the one below:

http://www.math-drills.com/geometry/geo_ccstructuresbuild_001.html

We are happy to give such deep discounts to our loyal customers year after year. Have a great school year!

1188 New or Revised Math Worksheets Today

You may wonder how we can add 1188 math worksheets in one day, but sometimes we just go crazy.

It isn't necessarily as epic as it sounds, but today's update marks an important upgrade to our Powers of Ten math worksheets page. We used user feedback and our own knowledge of math education to provide a broad range of worksheets for learning powers of ten.

Learning how to multiply and divide by powers of ten can be an extremely useful math skill for students to acquire. This skill draws on a student's knowledge of place value, decimals, basic number concepts, and other prerequisite knowledge about numbers and operations. The benefits include a better understanding of the above plus extends into other topics in mathematics including fractions, estimation, number forms, exponents, algebra, and measurement.

The Updates

All of the existing worksheets on multiplying and dividing powers of ten by whole numbers and decimals were revised. If you were a frequent visitor to the Powers of Ten page, you might recall that each worksheet had 5 versions and no "All" version. Now, each worksheet includes our standard 10 versions plus an "All" link.

Previously, the standard form and exponent form pages were included in the same document making it necessary to only print the pages you wanted from the four-page worksheet document. Now, the standard and exponent form worksheets have been split up into separate files, so you can download only the form you want.

In addition to the above, we've also made a whole set of worksheets where multiplication and division are combined on the same worksheet both for whole numbers and decimals.

Multiplying and Dividing by all Powers of Ten in Standard Form (Version A)

What's Next

While we were creating all of these worksheets, it occurred to us that some of you might also want to see some negative integers and negative decimals in the mix, so we should have those options available soon.

We also built capacity into our system to create European versions of the worksheets (i.e. using a point for a thousands separator and a comma for a decimal), so you may see those available in the near future as well.

One Additional Note

We've noticed a large increase in our users recently which can mean only one thing ... welcome back to school! Many schools in the U.S. and Canada where a large part of our user base is have already started their school year and many more will be starting in the next two weeks. Please accept our sincere wishes that you have a successful school year and that our math worksheets are part of it.

Even though we get a lot of visitors to Math-Drills.com, we have the capacity for many more, so please don't be shy and pass on the website link to others!

Australian Money and European Decimal Division

We added some new math worksheets this week. Read more about them below.

Australian Money Worksheets

http://www.math-drills.com/money_aus.shtml

If you happen to live in Australia, you might be happy to know that we've created an Australian money worksheets page complete with Australian coin counting and A4 paper sizes. Even though Adobe Reader squishes and stretches other paper sizes like we use in North America, so they print out looking nice, we also like to pay attention to the details.

European Decimal Division

http://www.math-drills.com/decimal_euro.shtml#division

Our European format decimals page now includes decimal division and it looks European! We didn't just convert the U.S. version, we formatted the division questions differently to reflect the procedure that students in many European countries (and elsewhere) learn.

By the way, the entire European Decimals page provides PDF files with A4 dimensions.

Enjoy the new math worksheets!

New Math Worksheets This Week

We've made a bunch of new math worksheets in the last week, and instead of inundating you with messages, we thought we'd put them all in one place.

In no particular order, here is what has been added this past week or so.

Hundred Charts on the Number Sense Page

We re-thought our hundred charts and created new versions including partially filled in hundred charts and hundred charts that include multiples of numbers from 3 up to 10. See them all here: http://www.math-drills.com/numbersense.shtml#HundredCharts

120 Charts on the Number Sense Page

One of our users reminded us that first graders in the U.S. must count up to 120 in the Common Core Curriculum, so we added a couple of rows to all of the hundred charts and came up with these: http://www.math-drills.com/numbersense.shtml#120

Expanded Form with Decimals

Another user suggested we add some expanded form with decimals worksheets which was another Common Core request. We were happy to oblige and created these: http://www.math-drills.com/decimal.shtml#expand

European Format Decimals Page

This page includes a lot of new worksheets since we re-made the entire decimal page into A4 paper dimensions and using the dot comma format used in several European Countries. Coming soon are some European format long division worksheets. See what we have so far at: http://www.math-drills.com/decimal_euro.shtml

Euro and Pound Money Worksheets

There really isn't anything new here, but we split the money page into the U.S./Canada, Euro, and Pound versions, so you don't have to wade through everything else to find what you are looking for. Just click on the flag you want. Hopefully, we will have an Australian version soon if we get the requested images from the Royal Australian Mint.

Number Sense Page Re-Organized

If you are a frequent visitor to the Number Sense page, you might notice things are a little out of place. We re-organized it slightly, so it is in a more logical order.

We hope that you enjoy our latest additions and encourage you to send us a request if there is something missing or needs improvement.

For those who are heading back to school this week in the U.S. (or elsewhere), we hope you have a wonderful first week. For those still on vacation, enjoy the rest of your summer!

Is the World Record 9.58 s or 9,58 s?

This article might be out of date really soon, but that isn't the point. As of this writing, the World record in Men's 100 m is 9.58 s, but for many people, the decimal is written as a comma rather than a point, so the record would be 9,58 s.

At Math-Drills.com, we strive to provide free math worksheets to the World which is why we try to include international versions as much as possible.

On our Money page, we have now split into two other versions, Euro money worksheets and British money worksheets. We thought this would be the best solution rather than packing all of the various versions into the same page. We should also have an Australian version in the near future as we have the permission to use the coin images from the Royal Australian Mint, but we don't have any good quality coin images.

You might notice that our Euro versions of money worksheets include commas for decimals which should look very natural for many people outside North America and the U.K. and downright confusing for those who usually use a comma as a thousands separator.

Number formats aren't as easy as different decimal symbols. There are many formats around the World, but the most common ones are the U.S. format (1,234,567.89), European Format (1.234.567,89) and the SI version which consists of spaces for thousands separators and either a comma for a decimal (French e.g. 1 234 567,89) or a point for a decimal (English e.g. 1 234 567.89). Canada is one country that uses a variety of formats. In English schools, students may learn the U.S. format and/or the SI English format. In French schools, students tend to learn the SI French version.

We've recently gone a step further and begun to create a separate European Format version of our decimals page AND created the worksheets with A4 dimensions. Here is an example of one of our newest worksheets:

Hopefully, we will eventually have versions for every possible scenario, but that might take a while.

But what about other languages, you might ask. What if you are in Germany and want to not only have German number formats, but also German titles and instructions? Well, one day that might come, but in the meantime, you can always use a PDF editor or good old scissors and glue to make the title and instructions in your own language.

Of course, if you are willing to help out with translations, please get in contact with us. We are currently seeking someone to translate the website into a Spanish version, but we are open to other suggestions as well. We are also working hard on our French language version at MathsLibres.com.

In the meantime, if you notice anything that we got wrong or needs improvement, please let us know.

Enjoy the rest of the Olympic Games, one of the best opportunities for summer math activities to come in four years!

Multi-Color Fraction Circles

There are some new and revised fraction circles at Math-Drills.com.

http://www.math-drills.com/fractions.shtml#blm

Fraction circles have been used for ages to assist students in learning fraction concepts. This is mainly because a circle can be divided into any number of equal size pie slices. Try slicing a rectangle into seven equal sized sections and you'll see why circles are so convenient.

Not only did we improve on the old fraction circles, we added a new choice: the multi-color fraction circles.

First page of the multi-color fraction circles. These fraction circles continue up to twelfths.

In these fraction circles, we've kept the pie slices with the same numerators the same color. For example, every fraction slice with a 4 as a numerator (4/4, 4/5, 4/6, 4/7, etc.) is colored pink. This might be useful for comparing fractions with the same numerators in a question such as, "Which is greater: 7/8 or 7/11?" Of course, there are certainly other imaginative uses for these fraction circles.

Ideas for Using Fraction Circles

Here are ten teaching ideas you can employ with fraction circles.

1. If you use fraction circles as manipulatives, try to get them printed on transparencies/overhead slides. Not only will they be more durable, they will be translucent to allow overlapped items to be partially visible.
2. Use fraction circles for comparing and ordering fractions. If necessary, cut the fraction circles up into separate circles or even into separate fractions. With separated pieces, it should be easy enough to see which fraction of two given fractions is greater in size. Giving students this visual memory will encourage them to remember the relative sizes of various fractions. They will also start to recognize equivalent fractions.
3. Using the black and white fraction circles, you can easily compare fractions if you make a paper and a transparent version. Color the paper copy with pencil and the transparent version with a non-permanent marker, compare, rinse/erase, and repeat.
4. Operations with fractions usually require the the fraction circles be separated. To add two fractions together, continue the circle started by the first fraction with the second fraction. If the sum is less than a full circle, then find a section that is the same size using the remaining fraction circles. For example, adding 1/3 and 1/2 together makes a partial circle and should compare quite nicely with 5/6. To subtract using paper black and white versions, overlap the two numbers to be subtracted with the subtrahend on top and with one edge (radius) lined up. Draw a line at the end of the subtrahend's other edge and find another fraction circle section that is the same size as the remainder of the section not overlapped. This assumes that the difference is positive. For negative differences, you might have to flip the circles over.
5. Use the multi-colored fraction circles in simple probability experiments. A paper clip bent out and a pencil or compass point turns the fraction circle into a simple spinner. Just hold the pencil or compass point on the center of the circle, hook the paperclip over the point and flick the other end of the paper clip to spin it.
6. If you print multiple copies of the fraction circles, multiplying fractions with whole numbers can be accomplished through repeated addition and consolidating the fraction circle pieces into wholes (if you have a multiplication question that gets that high, e.g. 1/7 x 5 won't but 3/4 x 9 will).
7. Thinking about simpler skills, modeling fractions is easily accomplished with the black and white versions. Start with the segmented ones that are labeled, then the unlabeled ones, then try to see if the student can model fractions on the 1/1 whole circle (i.e. without guidelines to help). They can check how close they were by holding a segmented circle and their answer up to a light, or by using a transparent answer sheet.
8. Use the unlabeled versions for recognition. Have students identify fractions either still intact as full circles or sections of those circles cut out. The more visual information they have, the better they will understand what fractions are later on.
9. For students who breeze through everything else, give them some challenges like, how many different ways can you add three fractions together to get one whole. Have them show their work and/or make a poster showing the different ways they made one whole.
10. Use the fraction circles in games. This is limited by your imagination, but here is one idea. Give each team a full set of fraction circles cut into segments and with magnets on the back (to attach to a magnetic chalk or white board). Give students a question, such as, "This fraction is greater than 5/6 but less than 7/8." Either give each team a turn or make it a race. Keep score, and of course, try to make it a tie so everyone feels good at the end :-)

We thought of ten ideas to use our fraction circles, do you have any other ideas? Comment on this post to share them if you do.

Patterning with Pascal's Triangle

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) is considered to be one of the great mathematicians. Although he didn't discover "Pascal's Triangle"; it was known to Islamic, Indian and Chinese mathematicians many years before; he investigated its properties to a greater extent which is why it is currently named after him.

The number in each cell of Pascal's Triangle is found by adding the two numbers above it, except for the top cell which is assigned a value of 1. For the cells on the edge, only one cell is visible above each one; the other can be assumed to be zero.

Math-Drills.com now includes a printable of Pascal's Triangle both in a filled out form (first 12 rows) and in a blank form. Below is a thumbnail image of the filled out version. You can access it directly by clicking on the link in the caption.

Pascal's Triangle Printable found at Math-Drills.com.

Below are a few ideas for elementary and middle school students.

1. Have students fill out the blank version to practice addition and to notice patterns that develop.
2. Show students the filled out version and have them search for patterns. Some of these patterns are quite easy to find, for example, the second diagonals contain a counting sequence. Other patterns are not so easy to see, for example, the sum of the cells in each row is a power of 2. The fifth row sums as follows: 1 + 4 + 6 + 4 + 1 = 16 which is 2 to the fourth power.
3. Have students color various multiples. For example, coloring the multiples of 2 or even numbers should result in an interesting pattern, especially if the triangle has been extended beyond 12 rows. With an infinite number of rows, you actually end up with a fractal named Sierpinski's triangle.
4. For even more ideas, please see All You Ever Wanted to Know About Pascal's Triangle.

We hope you enjoy our version of the Pascal's Triangle and use it in your home school or classroom.

Opening Multiple Worksheets Quickly *TIP

Have you ever felt the need to open a number of math worksheets all at once from Math-Drills.com?

When you click on a worksheet link, the worksheet opens in a new tab in your browser. To open a subsequent worksheet, you need to click on the tab that contains the worksheet links then click on the next worksheet that you want. These extra clicks are quite unnecessary as there is an easier way to open all of the worksheet that you want at once.

This takes a little bit of coordination, but after you get the hang of it, you will be opening math worksheets like crazy! With your free hand (i.e. the one that isn't controlling the mouse) hold the "CTRL" key on your keyboard while you click. If you aren't clicking, you might want to let the key go as it may cause other odd things to happen (e.g. holding the CTRL key and spinning the wheel on your mouse will zoom in and out).

If you've gone and tried this already, you will note that the worksheets still open in a new tab, but they open behind the active window. You won't lose your place and you can continue clicking until you've opened all the worksheets that you want.

One word of warning ... if you have a "slow" computer opening too many tabs may cause some performance issues. In this case, try not to open more than 5 to 10 tabs at a time.

A screen capture of the Safari browser showing multiple worksheets opened in a matter of seconds. The addition page remains on top while all the worksheets open in behind.

Once you have all of those tabs open, you can visit each one and print, save, or display the worksheet, or you can close the tab if you changed your mind.

An extension of this would be to open multiple index pages. For example, say you wanted to print addition, subtraction, multiplication and division worksheets. When you visit Math-Drills.com, hold down the CTRL key while you click on each of those pages from the navigation menu at the top of the page. Each page will load in its own tab for quick use.

This is not limited to Math-Drills.com, of course, this trick works anywhere you want to open multiple pages quickly. For example, you can open all of the news stories you want to read quickly from Google News using this method.

Happy Clicking!

Summer Olympics Math Opportunities

The London 2012 Summer Olympic Games starts July 27, 2012. With this great event, comes great opportunities to integrate mathematics into the lazy hazy days of summer and have great fun while doing it.

Numbers are a large part of the Olympic games and that gives parents, teachers, and other educators opportunities to use those numbers to improve the math skills of their children and students. Below are some ideas on how you can start your own Olympics math program at home this summer.

Chart the Medal Standings

The medal standings is what most people pay attention to and the source of national pride among much of the population. Charting the medal standings can be accomplished in a number of ways from paper to objects to computers. Be creative to ensure that there is a good balance between work and play.

Let's start with paper. Pictographs are easy enough and work quite well to compare medal counts. You could create a pictograph to show the medal count for your own country by using bronze, silver and gold as the categories. How about creating a pictograph that compares the total medal count of the top ten countries? You could also make a more complicated pictograph using three different colors to show bronze, silver, and gold medals for the top ten countries. All of this could also be accomplished quite nicely on bar graphs (or triple bar graphs to show all three types of medals).

Using objects can make this activity a little more impromptu and possibly integrate some motivators. Maybe you could slice up some carrots (gold), radishes (silver), and parsnips (bronze) and model the medals with them. You could also make a chart with movable ribbons, so the medal count could be increased each day. If you have a bit of a sweet tooth, there's nothing like little round candies to show medal counts.

For the more advanced, computers can make medal standing stand out nicely. Here's one I made using OpenOffice to show the medal standings in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

The advantage of using a computer is that the numbers can easily be updated every day and a new chart printed.

Learn About Decimals

There is no lack of decimals in the Olympic Games. Timing is done with computer precision and a single hundredth of a second can make the difference between gold and silver medals. Most people have access to a digital watch that will time to the nearest hundredth of a second (although the signal from the eyes to the brain to the finger to stop the timer often causes problems). It should be easy enough to time your child or student to run 100 meters, record this number and compare it to other numbers such as their favorite athlete's time. What is the difference between Usain Bolt's time of 9.69 s and your child's time?

Decimals can be modeled, written in words, read out loud, expanded, compared, ordered (although the broadcasters usually do that for you), added, subtracted, multiplied (how long would it take to run 500 m if the average speed was 10.52 s per 100 m?), divided, etc. Ask questions about decimals and if you don't get the right answer, see if you can teach your child a thing or two.

How many things can you do in a hundredth of a second, a tenth of a second, one second, ten seconds, etc.? These types of questions will help your child conceptualize the idea of time and make decimals make more sense.

Making Numbers Make Sense

Assuming numbers make sense sometimes leads us to forget that children need experiences to understand how the world works and by extension how math works. Perhaps you're watching a cycling event at the Olympics. How fast are those cyclists actually going? Jump in the car and see! How much weight are those weightlifters lifting? Don't lift it all at once, but see if you can come up with an approximation.

There are a number of interesting articles on Olympic numbers that give a different spin on things like medal counts. Media articles can be a great source of information to include in mathematical conversations, especially if they are written intelligently. Here is an example:

Who won the Beijing Olympic Medal Race?

Be Creative!

The key to including a little math into summer via the Olympic Games is creativity. I've only touched on a few ideas, and there are probably thousands more. Look for opportunities as they present themselves. Search for information on the Internet. For example, you could look up the medal counts for your country for the last ten years and use that information to estimate what the final medal count will be this year. Make a game of it by having everyone in the family or classroom make their own estimates and see who was closest in the end. Maybe the winner will get their own gold medal.

Now it's your turn. If you have an idea how to integrate mathematics and the Olympics, please comment below. If you're looking for something a little more formal, we stumbled across this nice collection of Olympic Related Math Activities.

$50 in Math Stuff Contest Winners!

Thanks to everyone who submitted their entry for our contest to win $50 in math stuff by including Math-Drills.com on a Pinterest board. In no particular order, here are the winners:

Math Worksheets and Activities
Mrs. Phelps Math-Drills Pages
6th Grade Math Classes
Math
Math in Mrs. Reynolds' Room

Congratulations to all of the winners! They have each won $50 worth of math stuff of their choice from Amazon.com (or other local online store). If you are one of the winners, please contact us at admin@math-drills.com if you don't hear from us.

15 Days Left to Win $50 in Math Stuff

Everyone who teaches or learns math could use some extra math stuff, right?

You have 15 days left to enter our contest. It's easy to enter... simply create a Pinterest board of math worksheets including worksheets from Math-Drills.com and Mathshare.com. Make sure to send us an email with the link to your board or comment on this blog with the link.

For more information, please see the full contest details here.

Should Children Practice Math Over the Summer?

If you live in countries like the United States or Canada, you are probably gearing up for a long summer break. Children tend to forget (or at least pretend to) everything they learned in the previous year by the time school starts up again in late summer. In reality, there is some "memory loss" over the summer, but it isn't necessarily going to have a negative effect on your student's learning. Most students will pick up where they left off and refresh their skills in the first few months of school.

Summer is a time for relaxing, family trips, summer camp, long bike rides, and maybe a few all-night video games. The last thing most children would want is to be subjected to school-type activities over the summer. Of course, there are also children who would happily go to school all year without a break, but even they need some down time once in a while.

Who Should Practice Math Over the Summer?

The main reason why you would consider having your child practice math over the summer is if your child NEEDS the extra practice due to low achievement in math. It should be a pretty easy sell if you keep a few things in mind:

1. Starting a campaign of summer math work too soon and too frequently will shock and horrify your child. Take it slowly and give summer a few weeks before starting.
2. Making it the child's idea can give them better ownership in what they are doing and can result in fewer arguments. Discuss the report card grades and ask your child what they could do over the summer to help them get ready for the next year. Ask them how you could help.
3. Negotiate! Okay, this one can be tricky, but if pool time follows math time, there might be more incentive. Try not to promise them something you should/would buy them anyway, like a bike. You can make this more fun with fake money that they can use for real things like trips to the amusement park.
4. It's not school, so don't use school hours. Depending on the age, try 15 to 30 minutes a day or each half day.
5. Make it part of the routine for the day. Children do very well with routine. NEVER make it a punishment to practice math. It should always be a positive part of the daily routine.

On the other end of the spectrum are students who already do well in school. They may want a little extra practice, so they can build a solid foundation for their career as a rocket scientist--which by the way, is probably going to be more common than you think. Note the number of private companies that are currently getting into the aerospace industry. For these students, learning and practicing new skills will only help them to shine more.

What to Practice

Start with the basics and move on from there. Children who do well in math class are the ones who know their basic addition, multiplication, subtraction and division facts and can apply them to more complex situations without being burdened by a calculator, table or finger counting. The goal is to get your child to the point where they can do most of the easy stuff in their head which will go a long way to getting them through engineering school.

If you aren't sure where to start, start with the easiest skills you can think of. You will soon find out if your child has mastered the skill or not. Here is a suggested procedure to follow for each skill:

1. Give students a pre-test to see what they know. If you are using a worksheet with 100 questions, ask them to complete the first row. You will probably appreciate their grasp of the situation after 10 questions, but if you don't, get them to complete the second row.
2. If they aced #1, get them to finish the rest of the sheet, praise them and move onto the next skill. If you noticed some issues along the way, try to identify what those issues were and teach the skill. Teach, practice, teach, practice, teach, practice, etc.
3. Once you are confident that your child knows the skill, give them a final test, mainly for the purposes of praising them and telling them how wonderful they are. This might also be where you give them one of those summer dollars that they can use on the family trip in August.
4. One caveat about #2 is if your child does not learn the skill quickly, then you might have to back up a bit and come back to it later. Say you started with multiplication tables up to 9 x 9 and they got 9/10 incorrect on the first row .... you may want to back up and start with multiplication facts up to 5 x 5. The more success and praise you can dole out, the better things will go.

Use Your Creativity

Since it is summer, you don't need to limit yourself to seat work. Let's say your family is out camping and you want to throw a little math into a rainy day. Well, you COULD sit down with a math worksheet and learn things that way OR you could put on the rain suits and go have some fun. Find a big puddle of water and build five drainage channels from the puddle then branch out each of those five channels into five more each. How much is 5 x 5?! Bring out some measuring cups and figure out what 1/2 + 3/4 is.

Sitting around a campfire? Ask your child what 9 + 7 is. If they get it right, give them a marshmallow to roast. If they don't know, give them the whole bag and have them work it out with the marshmallows. Get them to make different rectangles and triangles with the sticks. Can you make a scalene obtuse triangle with marshmallow sticks?

Include your child in all your daily math activities. Let's say you buy tickets for that amusement park and they cost $24 for adults and $18 for children. How much will it cost for the whole family? If your child is a little older or sharper get them to calculate the tax too.

Be Prepared

Using Math-Drills.com and other websites, you can be prepared for family trips, rainy days, screen-free summer evenings, etc. Print off a bunch of math worksheets that reflect skills your child needs to learn or practice and make a little booklet. If you are into scrap booking or you are otherwise talented and creative, think of a cool way to design the booklet. You could even put your child's name on it!

The Final Answer

The final answer to whether you should practice math over the summer is up to you. Helping your child be more successful in math does involve a little work but it pays off in better marks, more success in school and more options for your child in the long run.

Feel free to comment on ways that you help your child over the summer with math. If you are a teacher, what can you do to encourage parents to work on some math over the summer?

Searching for the Right Math Website

We like to keep up with the latest and greatest developments here at Math-Drills.com which is why we were happy to see that Google Site Search had a few upgrades since we last looked. Previously, our search box only returned results from our own website. Now, we can offer full search results while still allowing you to select results from Math-Drills.com only.

To illustrate, take a look at the following screen capture:

When you search using the search box at the top of the left sidebar, you will see the search results appear with a few tabs above them. Currently, we've set it up so you can see results from Math-Drills.com and MathShare.com. Simply click on one of those tabs and your search results will be filtered to only show results from the website you select.

If you want to see the results from the entire web, just click on "All" again. When you click on a link from the search results, your link should open in a new window, so you don't lose your place in the results.

We hope that you will find the new search functionality useful, and it results in finding exactly what you need. Of course, if you don't find what you need, please let us know and maybe we can make it.

Make Your own Collection of Math Worksheets and Win!

We've just made it easier to re-find your favorite math worksheets at Math-Drills.com. We've leveraged the power of Pinterest to allow you to "pin" individual worksheets onto a board to create your own collections of worksheets. There are many reasons why you might want to do this other than pinning your favorites, of course:

• create a board of math worksheets for each class you teach
• create a board of math worksheets for homework assignments
• provide parents with practice math worksheets for the summer break
• share math worksheets that you think others might find useful
• make a collection to share with your home school association

If you have other ideas, please comment on this post.

How to make your collection

First, you might want to see our example collection to see how nice it can look.

http://pinterest.com/freemath/example-collection-of-math-worksheets/

Follow these steps to make your own Pinterest collection of math worksheets:

1. You will need a Pinterest account. Simply request an invite at the Pinterest Website.
2. Create a new board with a descriptive name (e.g. Class 7b Homework Assignments, Grade 3 Geometry Worksheets, etc.). You can actually skip this step and create the board when you pin your first worksheet.
3. Visit any worksheet page at Math-Drills.com or MathShare.com and use the Pin it button in the right column.
4. The name of the worksheet will automatically be inserted into your pin, or you can customize it by typing whatever you like in there. For example, "Homework for Monday, May 14."

Keep visiting worksheet pages and pinning them until you have a collection

Free Math Stuff

We're so interested in seeing your math worksheet boards that we are giving away free math stuff to teachers or parents who create a Pinterest board collection of our math worksheets. We'll choose our five favorite boards and send you each $50 worth of math stuff. Some geographic restrictions apply due to the availability of math supplies in certain countries and/or shipping costs. We reserve the right to have sole discretion in regards to the awarding of our prizes.

To enter, simply post a link to your board as a comment on this post OR you can email a link to admin@math-drills.com (if you don't have a blogger account).

Good luck!

Deadline: June 30, 2012

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