What is in each PDF
Every worksheet is a two-page PDF that prints in black and white on US Letter paper. Page 1 has 8 to 12 problems on one skill, easier ones first, with room for a name and date. Page 2 is the answer key. Free to print, no sign-up.
What 1st grade math covers
The largest job in 1st grade is adding and subtracting within 20. Children use strategies such as counting on from the bigger number, making a ten, and using a doubles fact they already know. They also learn that addition and subtraction are linked, which is what finding a missing number in 8 + ? = 11 is really about.
The other big idea is place value. A two-digit number is made of tens and ones, so 47 is four tens and seven ones. That idea powers comparing numbers with the greater-than and less-than signs, adding a multiple of 10, and counting all the way to 120. Skip counting by 2s, 5s and 10s builds the rhythm that later becomes multiplication.
Children also start telling time to the hour and half hour, solving short story problems, and describing shapes by counting their sides and corners.
Using these worksheets at home
- Have a ten-frame handy, or draw one: two rows of five boxes. Filling it with coins makes the idea of making a ten easy to see.
- Ask your child to read story problems to you, then retell them in their own words before doing any math. Finding out what happened is half the work.
- After a place value sheet, grab a handful of dry pasta and bundle it into groups of ten. Then ask how many tens and how many ones you have.
- Time sheets go better next to a real clock with hands. Ask what time it is at breakfast and bedtime, not only on paper.
Where children get stuck
- Subtracting by counting back. Going back eleven steps is slow and error-prone. Show that 15 minus 13 can be solved by counting up from 13.
- Reversing digits. Writing 31 for 13 usually means the place value idea has not settled. Ask how many tens the number has before your child writes it.
- The half-hour hand. At 3:30 the short hand is between 3 and 4, and many children read it as 4. Show them the hand is only halfway there.
- Comparing signs. Skip tricks about alligators for now and have your child read the sentence aloud: 60 is less than 64.