Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

Best laid plans of mine often get lost somewhere between the To Do list and the dirty dishes, except for this time. This time I actually followed through, and I’m so proud! I really just want to scream with joy.

Last year Calculadders was on MilitaryKid’s daily work plan and sometimes we actually worked on it and sometimes we didn’t. Secretly I really just hoped that MK’s math fact skills would magically take off on their own, and he would magically know his math facts and be able to recall them quickly.

It didn’t happen, and then his IOWA test results came in. The test results didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know, but there it was in black and white; COMPUTATION SKILLS for each of the math operations. Addition was way below normal while the other three were only close to the norm for a 4th grader. When you consider that he scored quite high in all other areas seeing these numbers, in black and white, brought it to my attention that I had better make a plan to help MK get to where he needed to be. Help him get fast in math computation.

My plan was that every day MK would do 100 simple math fact problems in each of the four operations; one sheet of addition problems, one sheet for subtraction, one sheet for multiplication and one sheet of division problems. The problems are all simple problems such as, 2×6, or 24/8, simple problems to be worked quickly. To generate the sheets I used Math Factory Worksheets, free off the web too.

When we began the school year MK began doing these sheets each day, for a total of 400 problems, in addition to his 5th grade Singapore Math book. It was way too much and MK just stalled out, overwhelmed by the quantity of math work. I felt for him and knew I had to change it so that he could see that he was improving and gaining ground toward the goal; getting fast in recalling math facts.

I added a timer into the mix and set the goal of getting 100 math facts done in 4 minutes. MK liked the idea that he only had to work for 4 minutes per sheet until he saw how few problems he did. With the timer going MK only did 8 subtraction problems, 6 division problems, 20 addition problems and 15 multiplication problems. Way too slow.

We’ve included these sheets just about every school day since we started near the end of August and it wasn’t too long before SK joined in. He expressed concern that his math fact recall was slow too and needed to be improved. On his first day he was unable to do any of the sheets in under 4 minutes but he is now able to that in each operation.

It didn’t take MK too long before he was able to do 100 addition problems in 4 minutes, and now he’s doing them in 2-1/2 minutes! But today, today was a landmark day! Mark did 100 multiplication problems in 4 minutes! He did 80 subtraction problems and 50 division problems each in 4 minutes. What an improvement! YEA MK!!

Updated to add on Tuesday, Sept 26:

MK did 100 multiplication problems in 3 minutes and 2 seconds today. He was laughing and jumping for joy!