Mental Math Practice Worksheets

By Shilpa Rao

Today, we all know the importance of learning and marveling at mathematics. And every time we visit our children's schools we see Chinese and Indian students marveling at SATs. And we all know why they succeed in Engineering and Medical fields. Answer is quite simple, they are good at Math. But why are they so good? How did they study Math that makes them so good at that one arduous subject?

When we go to teacher meetings we are told by the teachers, to marvel at Math one must practice, practice and practice. But what if the child loses interest in practicing math? We all have had our share of experiencing the monotonous boring task of memorizing times tables. And after so many years, the same is repeated by the teachers everywhere, except, Asia. What do these Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Indians, etc.) do to make their children so good with Mathematics? Answer is quite simple, practice, practice & practice. But what is it that those students actually practice?

Lately, Abacus math has taken some of these Asian nations by storm. Abacus is a Latin word that has its origins in the Greek words abax or abakon (meaning "table" or "tablet") which in turn, possibly originated from the Semitic word abq, meaning "sand". The abacus is an instrument, a manual tool invented by the Chinese 2000 years ago. Over the past five years, in nations like Malaysia, Taiwan and India, countless tutoring centers like Sylvan, Huntington and Kumon have sprung up but with one goal in mind, tutor abacus math. Most of these centers offer training using the Japanese "Soroban abacus", which has one upper row of beads and four lower rows. The Soroban abacus is particularly effective for teaching mathematical calculating skills to young children.

Using an abacus, a child can do all arithmetic calculations up to 10 digits and master the skill of doing it mentally, without relying on modern devices such as calculators.

There are procedures and training methodologies to master abacus use. When children use both hands to move the beads for small and large arithmetic calculations, the quick communication between hands and brain not only stimulates brain cells promoting speedier and faster calculation ability but also promotes quick, balanced and whole brain development.

Now that you know what are all the benefits of learning abacus math - let us continue talking about practicing math. Every textbook comes with few practice problems and we always feel that these few problems are not enough. We want more practice problems for our children and students. The next best alternative is to find math practice worksheets. There are many websites that offer you download-able practice worksheets for a small fee. And there are some websites that offer you for free. Some offer you predefined sheets where as very few websites offer you build your own math practice worksheets.

Usage of math practice sheets early on can instill a great habit of enjoying math and at the same time help to solidify mental math skills. And using these sheets to perform abacus math mentally is absolute fun for a child.

Shilpa Rao is an experienced abacus mental math tutor. She focuses on curriculum development and has recently helped develop online "build your own mental math practice worksheets".

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Free Homework Sheets

By Nick Schofield

The students from both primary and middle schools often face problems with their homework. Though they attend their classes regularly but they are not able to understand few of the topics properly. This is not possible to get them solved by the teachers of the school as they have other classes to attend.

These topics remain unclear to them and the result is that they face problems while doing the homework. If these deficiencies are not made up the learning process will remain incomplete and the scores will be poor in exams.

This is of no use if you scold them later because this will not help them in anyways. So make sure that the kids are able to finish their homework at the right time. The online tutors are the best options as they can help the students when they need it at odd hours.

Sometimes the students get suffocated with the excess load of unfinished homework. This is the reason why you should get them some free homework sheets. These sheets are used to keep a track of daily homework and also the unfinished homework.

This will keep their tasks organized and you can also get to know where they are lacking. Hence this is equally useful for the kids and their parents. There are various layouts of the free homework sheets available in the internet which can be printed easily.

Hence get them as soon as possible as they will make the kids learn how to manage their tasks.

Free Homework Packs - Website Promotion Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nick_Schofield

Assessment Criteria for Free Math Worksheets on the Internet

Sites offering free math worksheets abound on the Internet. So what should free math worksheets look like? Are you searching for worksheets that have lots of problems for paper-pencil completion? Or is the illusive long division worksheet your quest? Finding the answers to these questions depends largely on personal preferences...and
more importantly who will be completing your freely printed math worksheets. Here are 10 criteria to keep in mind when selecting free arithmetic worksheets to use with students.

[1] Division worksheets are not all created equal. There are basically two types: math fact sheets and long division sheets. Math fact sheets are easy to create (with the division symbol between the numbers) and require few if any paper calculation from students. Long division sheets are more difficult to program, e.g., with or
without remainders, and allow for stepwise student completion of problems.

[2] Problems should use the Courier font. Why? Every Courier font character uses the same amount of space. A comma is the same width as the number 5. This means that all of the numbers line up perfectly for carrying during addition and bringing the zero down in division.

[3] Are the problems too close together? Make sure you can distinguish between the problem number and the actual problems. The problem numbers should be less obtrusive. Students with and without ADD and ADHD can become distracted by too many distractions!?

[4] Are there too many problems on the page? Some authors attempt to pack in the problems, leaving little room for students to show their work. The opposite can also be the case. Maybe there are not enough problems to accurately assess student knowledge.

[5] Are the digits on the printed page large or small? In my opinion and within reason, the numbers can never be too large. Exhibiting stress at an early age on elementary studentsí eyes from staring at small print can lead to stronger prescription lenses.

[6] Whereís the answer sheet? Are the answers correct? Are the answers listed in a column that you have to match with the student worksheets or on a replica of the student page laced with answers? Last thing you need is to be in a hurry and red mark student worksheets...when their answers were correct all along.

[7] The student worksheets should print squarely on the page. No cut offs allowed. A pet peeve: get rid of the header and footer if you are printing from a browser. Students donít need to know the URL of worksheets. Itís just plain tacky. If you
donít know how to get the header and footer to disappear, find someone who does.

[8] Developers of free math worksheets primarily use either of two methods for displaying and printing worksheets on the Internet. PDF pages require an additional piece of software, Adobe Acrobat, which should automatically open worksheets in your browser. PDF worksheets theoretically cannot be manipulated and display/print precisely as the developer designed. The second mode of delivery, HTML code, displays worksheets directly in your browser window. The downside of using HTML based worksheets is they are prone to printing problems. A worksheet meant for one page can easily bleed over to a second sheet.

[9] Some free math worksheet sites allow you to choose criteria, click a button, and generate a web page of problems. These types of web sites allow for worksheets that produce random digits in numbers. You should find more robust problems sets on web-generated math worksheets.

[10] How can web sites give away math worksheets? Do free math worksheet web sites make money? Yes and no. Let's just say it is very important that you visit and support your favorite free math worksheets web site!

In conclusion, nobody wants to pay for math worksheets anymore. Thatís OK because there are lots of places on the Internet to get freebies. Find arithmetic worksheets that address your needs and provide students with competitive problems sets, FOR FREE!

David Carr operates two web sites. ArithmeticCity.com is a web site offering free daily math worksheets to all educators. ArticlesForTeachers.com is a web site that displays educational news, articles, & information for teachers with few graphics. The target market is the education sector, primarily elementary to high school, charter schools, and cyberschools.

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