3rd Grade Arithmetic Facts Practice Sheets

All about these third grade arithmetic facts practice sheets

Free download! You can download our third grade arithmetic facts practice sheets for free from our website: www.meaningfulmathbooks.com. On this website, there are also sheets designed for fourth and fifth grade, as well as a variety of other resources related to Making Math Meaningful books.

Facts of the Week! (See next page.) Central to the idea behind these sheets is that every week there are five facts on the board which the teacher works on with the whole class during the week in a variety of ways (e.g., using movement, rhythmical work, games, etc.). These facts of the week then appear multiple times on the sheets for the current week, and are then reviewed systematically for the next several weeks.

Background work. These sheets should ideally be the culmination of two years of work. If the work in first and second grade has been effective, then the children should feel that these sheets are easy. If these sheets become too difficult and tedious, then it is likely that the classroom work being done in preparation for these sheets is either insufficient or not effective enough.

Timing and rhythm. The intention is that the first practice sheet should be done at some point between the end of September and the end of October of third grade. It can, of course, vary depending upon the class. After that, a sheet should be done (nearly) every day until the whole set of 100 sheets is completed. There are 20 weeks (100 days) of sheets in this set. Each sheet has 30 problems.

Completion. Since these sheets are designed to be an integral part of learning the math facts, it is important that each sheet of the entire set be completed, otherwise certain facts won’t get adequate exposure.

Caution! This should be fun and easy for the students. If successful, this builds their confidence. It is important to make sure that these sheets don’t become torture for the students. Try to de-emphasize the importance of speed. Help the students to realize that improvement is what is important.

The whole picture. The 30 problems listed on a particular sheet are only a part of the daily math practice. It would be very unfortunate if daily math practice consisted of nothing more that the 30 arithmetic facts practice problems that appear on these sheets.

When the class is not in a math main lesson, daily math practice should take about 10 minutes. The 30 arithmetic facts may take 3-5 minutes. The remaining 5-7 minutes can be spent doing a couple of written (vertical) arithmetic problems, some brief rhythmical work, or something else.

When the class is in a math main lesson, daily math practice should take about 30 minutes. The 30 arithmetic facts may take 3-5 minutes. After that, the remaining 25 minutes of math practice (during a math main lesson) consists of the material that was brought in previous blocks and the current one.

The elements of math practice. The following list shows some of the aspects to consider when planning math practice for the day.

Arithmetic facts practice sheet. The teacher copies by hand the 30 problems from a given day (see following sheets) onto paper to be photocopied.[1] (about 5 minutes)

Mental arithmetic. The teacher may decide to read the first 6 problems orally.

Extra math practice problems. There should be a few problems that the teacher comes up with and writes on the board. The students copy them into their practice books and work out the answers. These problems also include practice and review of material covered in previous math blocks. (Takes 20-25 minutes if the class is in a math block, otherwise only 5 minutes.)

Challenge problems. It is important that the last few problems (that the teacher adds on) be more challenging in order to keep the “quicker” students fully engaged.

What comes next? The next set of practice sheets is titled Fourth Grade Arithmetic Facts Review Sheets, and is intended to thoroughly review the math facts covered on the first practice sheets.

The hope is that just five minutes per day practicing these arithmetic facts results in the whole class quite effortlessly learning their math facts by heart.

And what happens if…? We hope that it won’t happen, but there may be a few children at the end of third grade who still haven’t learned their arithmetic facts. In order to help these children, we can give them a multiplication/division table (i.e., a square for the tables). Additionally, these students should study the basic arithmetic problems with flashcards during morning practice time.

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