Math Drills

Forty facts on a page, nothing else

Every one of the twelve sheets has the same shape: a name and date line, one sentence of instruction, then forty facts laid out in four columns of ten with a ruled line after each equals sign. No pictures. No word problems. The thing being trained is recall speed, so the page stays out of the way, and a sheet works better as a five minute warm up than as a lesson.

The order the twelve sheets are built in

Four groups of three, and the practice number tells you the size of the numbers. Addition opens inside twenty (3 + 5, 9 + 9, 1 + 19), moves to two digit sums that top out at exactly 100, then to three digits with answers from 243 to 1000. Subtraction climbs the same ladder: minuends under 19, then up to 100, then up to 955. Multiplication practice 1 uses only the 2, 3, 4 and 5 tables, practice 2 reaches ten, practice 3 reaches twelve. Division mirrors that and finishes on 144 / 12 and 132 / 11.

What the first multiplication and division sheets actually are

Worth knowing before you print. Practice 1 in both of those groups is drawn from a pool of only sixteen facts, spread across forty slots, so items come round again: 3 x 3 appears five times on the multiplication sheet and 8 / 2 five times on the division one. That is repetition of a short set on purpose, not forty different questions. It suits a child still fixing the low tables, and it will bore one who has already met the 7s.

Where children stall on these

Carrying and borrowing, far more than the facts themselves. Twenty of the forty sums on addition practice 2 need a carry in the ones column, and twenty of the subtractions on practice 3 need a borrow from the tens. Answers that land on a round number get written short: 99 + 1 and 984 + 16 are the two to check first. After that, watch the items that cross a ten, like 8 + 7, 13 - 9 and 45 - 36.