Do you write your own worksheets?

[meganrussell]

I have a 9 year old daughter, and we have tried several math programs for her but haven't found a good fit. What is working now is me writing her worksheets. I use lined paper and a pen and write problems for her to solve. We are working on multiplication and division facts right now, along with some fractions and reviewing addition and money etc. It seems to be working well, she loves to do then, and it only takes me twenty minutes or so to make her worksheets for the week. I also print out fun things for her to do, like color by number using multiplication and division facts, multiplication wheels to fill in, that sort of thing. Anyone else do this? I have two older and two younger kids, and she is the first child I've done this for (besides kindergarten and preschoolers).

[HomeAgain]

I do.  The last few months of school I bought a 1/2 in graph paper notebook.  I filled it in each day with problems that had skills he needed to work on.  I like that everything was kept in one place.  Some things were cut out of his old math book, some were hand written..I used colored pencils to separate the different types of problems.

 

I don't know if it is something I would continue long term through elementary, though.  This was a stop-gap as he was leveling out.  If I did it long term I would want a clear goal of a scope and sequence, and I'm not sure I'm up to writing a whole program by myself.  At least for math, lol.  I've written him other things like literature guides, grammar worksheets, Life of Fred manuals....but I haven't done a program of my own.

 

 

[Guest]

I do this on and off, too. For a while I tried to get going on the computer to print them out but it was more trouble than it was worth, and i just write them in pen on paper.

[regentrude]

I have tried to do this when I started homeschooling and needed to teach prealgebra, and I quickly realized that it is not a feasible way to replace a complete math curriculum. Designing a sufficient number of good problems that practice precisely what I intend them to do and build on each other in exactly the right way is immensely time consuming and requires a thorough understanding not just of the math (which I have), but of the math pedagogy as well.

 

It took way more than 20 minutes to write a week's worth of problems if it was the only resource! At some point, designing a good problem that uses exactly what the student is supposed to practice, and making sure it has a nice solution (or a solution at all) will take longer than it takes the student to solve the problem, so you will be looking at 5+ hours math sheet making per week. I found that this was not a sensible use of my time.

 

Edited July 6, 2017 by regentrude

[luuknam]

For math, no. I do sometimes ask math questions while we're walking to the library or w/e. For Dutch I do sort of make worksheets... Rosetta Stone does not give enough practice for the writing sections, so I've typed up sentences and words for the kids to copy, and I made my own AAS-style phonogram cards for Dutch as well. I need to go back to doing that - we took a break from writing while in NL to be able to go through vocab and grammar faster, but I haven't restarted. 

[meganrussell]

I Definitely would not do this for higher grades. I really feel like we are filling in gaps, too. I did print out a scope and sequence from another math book on her grade level, just to be sure I'm not skipping something. And I do print out worksheets to go along with it from super teacher worksheets.com and such.

[fralala]

I did something similar for a short period of time when my daughter was feeling really discouraged in math. But what regentrude mentioned was definitely true for us. Even in the earliest grades, good math practice is designed to facilitate the child's thinking process in a certain way. I could make drill sheets for, say, addition facts to 20, but that was a different matter from trying to create problems that would specifically scaffold my daughter's conceptual understanding of addition through 20. So I ended up just spending 5 mins. before each lesson decorating her Singapore Math worksheets with little cartoon characters saying they heart math and math rocks and other colorful, motivational messages, which seemed to make them more appealing to her during the math slump.
 

It sounds like you're pretty much creating sheets to drill her on stuff she already understands but may not have memorized, so that sounds like a terrific way to motivate her to do something that is generally not that pleasurable on its own!

[vonbon]

I'll often just neatly write a "worksheet" on a blank sheet of paper by hand--right in the moment.  

 

For example, yesterday there was a concept in math (we use a curriculum, so I'm not inventing my own in this case) that DD needed extra practice on.  The book made it too easy to figure out the right answers (hard to explain--it was a type of fractions game) and she didn't really fully get the concept.  It would have taken  too much time to either make up a worksheet document, search online for what we needed...it can take a lot of time to find things and then they aren't always exactly what we're trying to focus on.  Lots of wasted time.  And then DD loses focus in the meantime or we have to wait until the next day to follow up--hard to get back to the concept.  

 

So while she worked on another page, I went back and copied some of the fractions in question to a blank sheet, adding in more examples and harder problems.  This probably took 1 minute or less to do.  Then she went back and completed my worksheet.  I've done this many times when we just need to laser-focus on something.  

 

Sometimes time will go by and I wonder if she remembers how to do certain things she learned a year/two years/several months ago.  So I'll make up a "worksheet" on blank paper with a mix of operations and word problems.  It could contain, for example, a $ problem, a fraction, addition, subtraction with regrouping, etc.  I might make it 5-10 problems long--just a short page to do before our regular lesson.  But that's in addition to the work she's completing in the curriculum we use.

 

I'm not sure if that helps with what you're asking?

 

Also, Family Math (book series; comes in 2 or 3 options and is geared towards different levels of learners--can  be used with the whole family; more hands-on) comes to mind as a way to mix in interesting math.  Sometimes I've used this when DD is just not getting along well with the regular curriculum we use.  Have you seen it?

[Heathermomster]

Maybe...I'm pretty good at developing new problems on the fly. For example, if I see that a step is being missed, I'll use a dry erase board and jot down new problems to solve. I mainly keep spare math curriculum and incorporate problem sets so that I'm not reinventing the wheel.

 

When DD was younger, I drew up math games on the computer, laminated them, and used those elements until she didn't need them anymore.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Often yes.  I've gone through several math levels with my older kid so at this point I know what needs to be covered.  I barely use any specific curriculum and will often write my own worksheets.