Math-Drills.com Blog

Multiplication Worksheets Changes

2013-04-26T08:56:00.001-04:00

There were some changes to the Multiplication page at Math-Drills.com in the last few days. Instead of one enormous page, it is now two smaller pages. The first page focuses on Multiplication Facts and the second page on Multi-Digit or Long Multiplication. This change plus a few other changes to both pages will allow for a much faster page load speed and easier navigation.

Along with the split, we also revised or added new multiplication worksheets including:

Multiplication Facts to 81 -- Almost all of the worksheets in this section were updated.
Horizontal Multiplication Facts -- About half of these were updated with our new style.
Two-Digit Multiplication -- All of these were revised and SI (Canadian) versions were added.
Three-Digit Multiplication -- All of these were revised and SI versions were added.
Large Print Multiplication Worksheets -- Many new large print multiplication worksheets were added to both multiplication pages.

We are continually evaluating our math worksheets and content pages, so the changes will keep coming. We hope you enjoy our newly revised multiplication pages and find what you need. Have a nice day!

Earth Day Tips for Math Worksheets

2013-04-20T10:10:00.001-04:00

Even though Math-Drills.com math worksheets look great printed on paper, some people might want to reduce the amount of paper they use. If you are concerned about the amount of paper you use, here are some tips to ease your conscience.

Teach Mental Math

Mental math means that students complete mathematical questions in their mind without the aid of pencil and paper. This is one of those skills that can seem impossible to some, but with some practice, mental math becomes easier all the time. The paper-saving trick here is that you don't need a copy of the page for each student; you don't even need a single copy if you can write the questions on a chalk board, a white board or display the worksheet on a screen. By the way, students who practice mental math strategies are usually quite successful in math class.

Share the Worksheet

Know other teachers who teach the same lessons? How about other home schooling parents? Instead of printing pages all the time, make a little booklet of common pages and share it around. Students can complete the necessary work on an erasable board, using math manipulatives, using technology or using a mental strategy.

In a classroom setting, rotating students through stations, using collaborative groups or pairs means fewer copies needed. Teachers can also display a worksheet with an overhead projector, or an interactive white board and use the same one from year to year.

Re-Purpose the Paper

Okay, we understand... you've printed 500 pages and used an entire package of paper. Now that the students have completed all of the worksheets, mastered each topic and gone on to bigger and better things, what do you do with all of the paper? Well, you could get out the hole punches, turn it all into confetti and sell it to wedding parties, but that's a little messy. You could shred it and use it as bedding for your hamster. Or you could use the other side of the paper for scrap which brings us to the next idea...

Don't Forget to Use Both Sides

Using both sides of the paper is standard practice, we hope. If you don't have two math worksheets to print, try printing some lines on the opposite side. Once you're finished with the math worksheet, you can use the lined side for notes, other school work, writing, etc. You could also print some graph paper on the opposite side of some of the paper and use it for other math activities or in the same way that lined paper is used. A hole punch and a binder will keep all of those loose papers organized nice and neat! Some people also cut up the pages with a blank side, staple them together and use them as scratch pads.

Paper Mache or Fish Wrap Anyone?

There are thousands of uses for used paper, bounded only by your imagination or a Google search. Some of our favorites include: paper mache, fish wrap, garden mulch, shredded paper fire logs, and origami.

Recycle the Leftovers

Do we really need to say it? Once you're done conserving paper to begin with and reusing what you can, stack the rest neatly into the recycling bin to be turned into something new. Remember, the more you reuse, the better, because there is a cost to recycling. Consider the energy (e.g. gas for the truck) it takes to gather all of the used paper, break it up into pulp, turn it into another product, then transport it again.

Have a great Earth Day! We hope your day isn't too bright (since you turned off the lights), you enjoy your crunchy locally sourced vegetables (since cooking them would take electricity), and you plant a few trees to make up for the worksheets you used in the past year.

Classifying Quadrilaterals

2013-04-18T19:50:00.000-04:00

Any two-dimensional shape with four straight edges is a quadrilateral. There are some special types of quadrilaterals with specific properties that help us to classify quadrilaterals into a variety of groups. The properties that are normally used to classify quadrilaterals include: side lengths, angle measurements, parallel sides, adjacent sides, and diagonals. Some quadrilaterals can be classified in several ways, but they are usually classified as the quadrilateral with the most strict definition. For example, a square meets the criteria to be a rectangle, a parallelogram, a rhombus, a kite, and a trapezoid, but we usually just call it a square. Usually calling a square anything else will tend to confuse students, so it might be best to avoid that discussion until they have a firm grasp on the properties of all quadrilaterals.

The Square

All four angles must be 90 degrees
All four sides must be equal in length
Opposite sides must be parallel
Diagonals must cross at a 90 degree angle

The Rectangle

All four angles must be 90 degrees
Opposite sides must be equal
Opposite sides must be parallel
Diagonals may cross at various angles

The Rhombus

Opposite angles must be equal
All four sides must be equal in length
Opposite sides must be parallel
Diagonals must cross at a 90 degree angle

The Parallelogram

Opposite angles must be equal
Opposite sides must be equal in length
Opposite sides must be parallel
Diagonals may cross at various angles

The Trapezoid

Opposite angles may be different
Opposite sides may be different in length
One pair of opposite sides must be parallel
If one pair of opposite sides is equal in length, it is an isosceles trapezoid.
If there is at least one right angle, it is a right-angled trapezoid.

The Kite

Opposite angles must be equal
There must be two pairs of equal adjacent sides
There is no requirement for parallel sides
Diagonals must cross at a 90 degree angle

Other Quadrilaterals

There are several other specific quadrilaterals including a dart (a concave quadrilateral), a bowtie (a complex quadrilateral), and several others that are a little beyond the scope of elementary mathematics.

There is no doubt that students who learn the quadrilaterals in this article and can identify them readily, will most likely experience success when it comes to more advanced concepts like finding the area of polygons, circle geometry and algebra. To practice identifying quadrilaterals, check out our Classifying Quadrilaterals worksheet at Math-Drills.com.

Built-In vs. Add-On Math Worksheet Viewers

2013-04-09T10:51:00.000-04:00

Viewing and printing the math worksheets at Math-Drills.com requires the use of a PDF viewer/reader. With the recent addition of a built-in PDF reader in Chrome and Firefox, we thought we'd pass on a little bit of information that you might find helpful.

First of all, the difference between a built-in and add-on PDF viewer is that the built-in version comes with the browser and the add-on version has to be added "on top of" the browser installation and is a separate program. For many years, the only way to see PDF files in a browser (e.g. Internet Explorer) was to install an add-on PDF viewer, and generally, the add-on viewer was Adobe Reader. These days, there are at least three browsers (Firefox, Chrome, and Safari for Mac) that come with a built-in PDF viewer, and there might be more to come.

Below are some tips on using various methods to view PDF files including our math worksheets.

Adobe Reader Add-On

Adobe invented the format, so this is generally what people install on their computer... or used to. Adobe Reader is the free viewer/printer that includes a stand-alone program and add-ons for major browsers. If you can see PDF files in Internet Explorer, you most likely have Adobe Reader installed. We highly recommend Adobe Reader because of the page sizing and handling options available in the print window. Adobe Reader is well supported among major browsers and allow some configuration options when displaying PDF files in web pages.

Chrome (Version 26.0.1410.43 m)

Chrome was the first major browser to include a built-in PDF viewer. It works well with our math worksheets, but you have to know that the menu is a little different. In order to find the menu, you have to hover your mouse over the bottom right corner of the PDF object. Using this menu, you can print, save, or resize the PDF worksheet in the window. You can get the same menu option by right-clicking your mouse on the PDF page.

It isn't required that you use the built-in PDF viewer in Chrome; you can easily disable it and use the Adobe Reader add-on instead. Just search for "disable Chrome PDF viewer" and you will be on your way.

Firefox (Version 19.0.2)

Firefox very recently came out with a PDF viewer and it had a "rocky" start, but it seems to work quite well now. Firefox includes a visible menu at the top of the PDF file, which is much nicer than Chrome since you can (a) see it and (b) it is at the top! This built-in PDF viewer has all of the functionality of the Chrome version and more, including a search feature. It still lacks the print options available in Adobe Reader, but you can easily download the PDF file and open it automatically in Adobe Reader.

You can disable the Firefox built-in PDF viewer and use the Adobe Reader plug-in if you so choose.

Internet Explorer (Version 10)

Internet Explorer does not have a built-in PDF viewer, but since more than half of our users are on Internet Explorer, we thought we'd give it a section. Viewing math worksheets in Internet Explorer requires the use of an add-on. Adobe Reader is highly recommended, but other PDF reader add-ons may work as well. If you have difficulty seeing math worksheets in Internet Explorer, you may have to install Adobe Reader, re-install Adobe Reader (i.e. uninstall then install again), or use a different browser.

Safari

"Safari on the Mac comes with a built-in PDF engine, allowing you to quickly review PDF documents in Safari without having to install slow and cumbersome third-party plug-ins." (source: Apple.com). Now, we don't agree that Adobe Reader is slow and cumbersome, but for those of you on a Mac, you can use the built-in reader in Safari to view our math worksheets.

Other Browsers and Add-Ons

We don't recommend using anything other than the freely available browsers or add-ons mentioned above. Unless you need to edit PDF files or create them yourself, there is probably no need to purchase a PDF reader or install anything other than the ones above.

It is exciting that browsers are starting to come with built-in PDF viewers; hopefully, they will evolve into worthy alternatives to Adobe Reader mainly so people can avoid having to install another program on their computer. If you have any comments or questions about using PDF readers to view and print Math-Drills.com math worksheets, please let us know.

Easter Egg Hunt Winners!

2013-04-01T13:17:00.001-04:00

Easter Egg Hunt 2013

2013-03-22T12:30:00.002-04:00

Get out your baskets because Math-Drills.com is having an Easter Egg Hunt! The hunt begins on Friday, March 29, 2013 at 12:01 a.m. EDT and ends on Sunday, March 31, 2013 at 11:59 p.m. EDT. Here are the rules:

Coded Easter eggs will be hidden around the Math-Drills.com website on content pages, information pages, game pages, or worksheet pages. The eggs will look like this:

12345

All you have to do is write down five different codes associated with Easter eggs and submit them by email to: egghunt2013@math-drills.com with the following information:

your first and last names
your country
your email address
a declaration that you are 18 years of age or older (e.g. "I am over the age of 18..." or state your age).
and the five egg codes, of course!

The information above will be used only for the purposes of the Math-Drills.com Easter Egg Hunt 2013. By submitting an entry, you agree to have your name and country published on our blog should you win a prize.

If you want to submit more than five codes, you may, but it won't improve your chances of winning a prize.

Only one entry is allowed per person and must be sent from a valid email address that is owned by that person.

There are five mystery prizes available to be won. The winners and their prizes will be announced on our blog after the contest ends and the prizes are awarded. Additional information may be needed from prize winners (such as a mailing address) for the purposes of awarding a prize.

Only adults 18 years of age or older may enter the contest (but that doesn't mean your child can't do the searching for you).

Prizes can only be awarded to residents of the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, but you may still enter if you live in another part of the world.

If there are more than five valid entries, then each valid entry will be assigned a sequential integer and a set of five integers within the assigned range will be generated using random.org to determine who wins the prizes.

If one or more prize winners do not claim their prizes, the above procedure may be repeated with the non-winning valid entries.

Math-Drills.com staff and their family members and friends are not eligible to win a prize.

Have a Happy Easter and we hope you enjoy our Easter Egg Hunt!

** A few last minute additions:

1. All Easter eggs can be found at the top of the right column. They won't appear anywhere else, so no need to scan entire pages.
2. Each Easter egg also includes a clue that will help you find another Easter egg.
3. There are a total of 15 Easter eggs hidden on Math-Drills.com, but you only need to find 5 of them.

Have Fun and Happy Easter!

Snazzy New Look

2013-02-17T19:19:00.000-05:00

Math-Drills.com has a new snazzier, easier-to-use and faster design. Here is a summary of the new enhanced features.

The ugly navigation menu at the top of the page was moved over to the side so it is no longer "in your face."
The page links were organized to make the pages you're looking for a little easier to find. Check out the right side of the page to get quick access to all of our worksheet pages.
We used some stylish new colors including a beautiful blue-gray for the titles and a calming grey for the text.
The header area is much smaller and includes major links that you might find useful like home and search links.
The information links were moved to the bottom. They don't get clicked on much, so why take up space up top?
The search page was updated, so the search results open in their own box. Much slicker, we must say.
Many other small improvements were made that are too many to list in this post.

We hope you enjoy the new design improvements. Thank you very much for choosing to visit Math-Drills.com and for signing up for our newsletter.

If you are in the U.S. or many parts of Canada, have a great long weekend!

Scientific Notation, Converting Inches, and Games

2013-02-04T21:48:00.002-05:00

A few new updates were made to Math-Drills.com over the past week or two that you might be interested in. Besides a number of design changes to improve the user experience and the performance of the website, we found time to make a few worksheets and update a couple of games. Here is a summary of what we did:

Scientific Notation Worksheets

We used to have one worksheet for converting between scientific notation and ordinary numbers, and we've turned that into nine different scientific notation worksheets. Since many people appreciate having the skills broken down, we thought that it would only be appropriate to do the same with the scientific notation worksheet. Now, we have worksheets that are exclusively for:

converting from scientific notation to ordinary numbers
converting from ordinary numbers to scientific notation
converting both ways.

Each of those options also include options for small numbers only (i.e. negative exponents), large numbers only (i.e. positive exponents), and both.

Converting Inches to Centimeters

Essentially the same thing was done with the old inches to centimeters worksheets on the Measurement Page. We broke it up a bit, so you could take some baby steps with the skill if necessary, or jump right to the most difficult one if your student is able. Four options now exist with worksheets that include only whole number inches, worksheets with half inches as well, worksheets with quarter inches as well, and finally, worksheets with all of the above and eighth inches as well.

Quiet Update

We quietly updated the Multiplication Facts to 49 worksheets. You might notice that LP (large print) links exist for all of the worksheets in that section now and the look of the worksheets has been updated. One nice feature about our facts to 49 worksheets is that we've controlled the repetition in clever ways. For example, the All Multiplication Facts to 49 (1 to 7) worksheet includes each of the 49 facts exactly once in each version. This is why we've only put 49 questions on the page. There are 64 questions on the (0 to 7) versions because there are 64 possible questions, and each question is found exactly once on each page.

Dots Math Game

It used to be that you had to open another window to play the Dots Math Game, but we've changed that, so you can now play it on the Dots Math Game page directly. We usually get a score of about 40 when we play. Has anyone ever got a score of 49 playing against the computer? Send us a screen capture if you do!

Sudoku Game

We did the same thing with the Sudoku Game and made it playable on the Sudoku page without having to open another window. If you've played this in the past and had trouble reading the extra-small instructions, well, we improved that as well. Enjoy playing Sudoku in night or day mode. We tried playing it on a smart phone and it performed beautifully. If you have a tablet or smart phone, you may enjoy trying it out on that screen too.

Flash Cards

It may come as no surprise to long time users that our flash cards are again broken and in need of repair. Hopefully, we'll get it right this time! We apologize for any inconvenience.

That's it for now. Have a fantastic week and don't let any math riddles get you down.

Linear Equation Graphs and Measuring Angles

2013-01-22T08:53:00.000-05:00

There are new linear equation worksheets and measuring angles worksheets at Math-Drills.com!

The linear equation graphs were requested by one of our users who wanted worksheets that asked students to find slope and intercepts when given a graph of a linear equation. The new worksheet options are:

Find the Slope from a Graph
Find the y-intercept from a Graph
Find the x-intercept from a Graph
Find the slope and y-intercept from a Graph
Find the slope and intercepts from a Graph
Find the slope, intercepts and equation from a Graph

The measuring angles worksheets come in various types depending on how advanced your students are:

Measuring Angles from 5° to 90°
Measuring Angles from 5° to 175°
Measuring Angles from 90° to 175°
Measuring Angles from 185° to 355°
Measuring Angles from 5° to 355°

Enjoy the new math worksheets, and as always, if you have any ideas for new ones, please let us know.

Design Improvements

2013-01-20T20:01:00.002-05:00

Math-Drills.com received its most recent design improvement over the weekend. Every once in a while we take a look at the website and try to improve things for our millions of users and to reflect the technology that they are using. For example, about half of our users use Internet Explorer to access the website, and recently we've noticed that most of them have finally upgraded to version 8 or higher which means we can use designs that can be seen in version 8 (but not version 7 or older).

In case you don't see the improvements, just hit refresh and you should see all of the updates. Here, in no particular order are some of the improvements that we made:

Narrowed the width of the website slightly from 1040 pixels to 1000 pixels. This was mainly for people who still have a smaller monitor and have trouble fitting everything into their screen without zooming or using the horizontal scroll bar.
Improved the mobile view for people on small screens like Smart Phones. Please try accessing the site on your iPhone or other Smart Phone and let us know what you think.
Spaced out the worksheet links and enclosed them in boxes to enable easier clicking. Previously, it was kind of hard to click on the "I" worksheets, for example.
Updated the sub-menu style to look more like the main menu.
Updated the look of the sidebar links.
Updated the look of the category titles.
Moved the sidebar to the right of the screen. Because people generally read left to right, we thought it would be better to have the important stuff (i.e. the worksheets) on the left instead.
Moved the links to the MathStore and MathsLibres to the sidebar instead of the main menu since they are external links.
Improved the sharing experience with larger buttons and better functionality.
Updated some of the color scheme, so everything fits in with the blue theme.

That was quite the long list, but we didn't stop there. You should start seeing some updates on the worksheet pages as well. Some of the improvements above (e.g. width and mobile views are already live). We also took a look at our graphics and decided they needed a bit of a makeover. You may want to explore some of the new graphics such as the one on the bottom of the patterning page:

Or the one on the Dots Math Game page:

Okay, one more... here is the new graphic from the Powers of Ten page:

All of these images are "pinnable" on Pinterest, in fact, we've pre-populated the Pinning dialogue if you use the "Pin" button on our page.

Once we're done with the design improvements, we will, of course, be back to making new math worksheets for the site. If you have any suggestions for new math worksheets or think that an old one needs revision, please let us know.

Enjoy your week!

Happy New Year!

2013-01-02T11:34:00.000-05:00

Best wishes from Math-Drills.com for a happy and prosperous 2013!

Over the past couple of weeks, we've added a few worksheets that are just in "time" for the "new year." You may have guessed it, we've added calendars. We designed two versions for your calendar math activities including a yearly calendar and a monthly calendar. Visit the calendars section on the measurement page to download our new calendars today.

Time to Measure Up!

2012-12-19T11:09:00.000-05:00

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

2012-12-08T09:51:00.002-05:00

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

2012-12-02T21:54:00.000-05:00

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

2012-11-19T14:13:00.001-05:00

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

2012-10-24T08:55:00.002-04:00

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

2012-10-16T19:55:00.000-04:00

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

2012-10-10T13:23:00.000-04:00

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

2012-10-03T13:41:00.000-04:00

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

2012-09-28T16:49:00.002-04:00

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

2012-09-19T15:58:00.001-04:00

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

2012-09-12T15:45:00.000-04:00

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

2012-09-11T11:47:00.000-04:00

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

2012-09-03T13:26:00.001-04:00

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

2012-08-28T08:46:00.001-04:00

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!