When I was growing up, I remember doing something my teachers called sponge activities, which was working for 5-10 minutes on a worksheet or problem they stuck on the projector to get our brain juices flowing before we began our coursework for the day. That’s kind of the same idea with the One Page a Day: Double Digit Math Problem Workbook my son has been trying out from Channie’s Visual Handwriting & Math Workbooks.
This workbook is 50 pages, or rather 25 double-sided pages. The pages can easily be torn out if your child is overwhelmed with the whole book and would work better on a single page. It is designed as daily addition and subtraction practice for students roughly in 1st through 3rd grades, though it would be a good refresher for older students as well since all of the problems work with double digits.
Something I like about this math workbook that I have never seen before is that each column and row have little dotted lines separating them. While that seems like a minor thing, it helps with penmanship because it helps students to stay in the correct box area to answer their problem. Not only that, but it keeps them focused on working one column at a time to do the problem. The columns are also labeled as tens and ones. I made sure to ask my son what the furthest left column would be if it was labeled, and he recognized that if an addition answer spilled over, we would be dealing with the hundreds place. I was glad he knew that!
My son and I liked the One Page a Day aspect of this workbook. I actually had him complete about half of one side in the morning and the other half of that same side in the afternoon. Used like this, the book could be used for 50 school days, which would be perfect for us as he’ll be learning more about multiplication and division by the middle of the year in his math program. This will give him a solid foundation and extra practice.
Clearly, this is a supplement and not a full math curriculum. The great thing is that it can support any math curriculum you are already using. It is convenient and can be brought along while you’re on the road, in a waiting room, waiting for a movie to start, or even used at the breakfast table in the morning. It encourages students to work on their math skills and penmanship in one fell swoop. I love products that do double duty like that!
Starting on page 9, they mix the operations on the page. They start out simply enough with all addition problems for pages 1-4 and all subtraction problems pages 5-8. Be sure to point out to your student the need to check which operation they’re doing after that! Once we got to that page, my son wasn’t paying very close attention and I had to remind him that he had to actually look before starting work on the problem.
My son seems to practice his print and cursive regularly, but I see him struggle with number formation sometimes because he doesn’t practice it as much. He’s a very mathy kid and tends to do everything in his head. This requires that he write the answers down and form each number on paper. That’s definitely a skill he’s going to absolutely need and need for them to be correct by the time he gets into more complicated math where he’ll be forced to write things down to practice on paper before answering.
If you’re looking for a pad like this to work on letter formation, Channie’s also has a Quick & Neat Alphabet Pad and the My First Letters workbook. All of their products would be perfect for homeschooling families or any family that is working on these skills a bit at home. I was public-schooled and loved doing worksheets, so this would have been right up my alley for after school work.
Other reviewers tried this workbook out, but many also tried other Channie’s products. Click the banner below to see how they used them.
