Addition Worksheets - Know When and How to Use Them For Home Schooling

Addition worksheets can be a big help to your home schooling. Worksheets can give your kids a boost in their math or they can become a big pain in the neck, a source of contention, and the scene of many battles. It's all up to you.

When Should You Use Addition Worksheets?

Worksheets should be used to help your child remember math facts. Children need to know their basic facts without thinking. By knowing their facts automatically, they become faster at their math while making fewer mistakes. This helps them score better on standardized tests and helps you on a day-to-day basis. How?

When your children have their addition facts memorized, they make fewer mistakes. One of the most common comments made by homeschooling mothers is how many math problems their children miss on a daily basis.

One way to put a stop to this is by having your children memorize these facts. Having to stop and calculate basic facts on each and every math problem makes for a very long math lesson with many mistakes. This is frustrating to both the parent and the child.

When Not to Use Addition Worksheets

Worksheets should not be used as "busy" work. This is a method used by overworked and overwhelmed public school teachers. With many students working in one room at different levels, teachers have no choice but to give "busy" work to maintain a sense of order in the classroom.

Fortunately, this isn't the case with home schooling. When your child has finished his work, reward him by letting him do something he enjoys. If you need to keep your child occupied while you are working with one of your other children, have certain educational things your child can be doing such as building with Legos, educational computer games, reading a book, or puzzles -- whatever your child enjoys.

Worksheet Warning!

Whatever you do, do not use worksheets excessively. This will become very tedious to your child and will take the fun out of learning. Once your child has their facts memorized, use worksheets only occasionally unless your child sees worksheets as a challenge and loves to do them. Some children truly love the challenge of "beating their time" on timed math worksheets. If this is the case, give them all they want!