What's in Our Math Binder | Daily Math

Creating a math binder is an easy way to take the best worksheets from a variety of workbooks. I take worksheets that are about 1-3 grade levels below with the intention that this daily math shouldn't take more than 10 minutes, should be easy, and cover basic math.

Check out the only math workbooks I buy these days:
   • Math Curriculum Workbooks  | MUST HAVE  | ...  

Mental Math Grades 1-3
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Mental Math Grades 3-5
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Mental Math Grades 4-8
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Buy the bundle:
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Mental math is the process of orally asking math questions and having the student compute the math in his or her head and orally answer the question. These are not questions that are drilled or memorized. Often you’ll find two part questions that can still be done mentally but are more challenging because now the whole question needs to be remembered while each portion of the question is worked out.

Questions are often two parts with the first part including a multiplication or division question followed by an addition or subtraction question. When questions include whole numbers and fractions the possibilities for questions is tremendous. Here are some examples:

2 x 5 + 9 = (19) 12 x 1/2 - 1 1/2 = (4 1/2) 12 ÷ 4 + 6 = (9) 7 x 7 + 18 = (67)

Mental math is ideal when it is included in your opening activities, but you may choose to do mental math whenever it fits your daily schedule. While it’s best to do mental math everyday, you may double up on mental math lessons when necessary. Or, you can do mental math 2 or 3 days a week. I find that mental math is best before a lesson and that it is math the student is already familiar with; it should not be new learning. In general, mental math is best when the student is fresh and isn’t already academically fatigued. For most children this is in the morning, but you may find your child performs best at another time of day.

These worksheets contain five questions each day of the school week (Monday through Friday, or in the case of the worksheets marked Day 1 to Day 5 to accommodate international school weeks). That’s a total of 35 questions a week. That’s over 1000 questions a year, most of which are two part questions so that’s like doing nearly 2000 questions a year! That’s sufficient, but when I was doing these questions with my children, I often did 6-10 questions a day when my children were about grade 5 to grade 9, and about 2-5 questions when my children were grades 1-4. I would repeat the same questions year after year adding more challenging ones the first time my children went through these questions. By the time I had created all my mental math questions I had over 4000 questions spanning 3 years. I simply recycled the questions year to year.


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