Well, the new school year is officially underway. We touched division last year briefly, but fourth grade here is where we need to get our division facts down cold. Of course, the goal is working up to those long division worksheets but to get there, you really need to establish a solid grounding in the division facts first.

Unfortunately, division isn’t just multiplication in reverse. Oh yeah, we tell them that and it flies for a while, but then one ugly left over spoils the fun. Remainders. You only get so far into division before this remainder thing pops up, so if you arm your kids with only the “reverse the multiplication” strategy, division quickly develops a reputation as the nightmare operator. We relied heavily on the idea that addition and subtraction had “fact families” and you could always reverse them, but that clean relationship just isn’t there for multiplication and division. I mean, what’s the corresponding multiplication fact for 5 / 2 = 2 r 1 ? 2.5 x 2 ? We don’t get closure here until we’ve introduced fractions and decimals… Perhaps division’s reputation as a monster is a bit deserved. Either way, this post describes the various sets of division worksheets on the site to help you introduce division and remainders successfully.

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Dr. Donald Crawford paid a visit to DadsWorksheets.com last week and suggested perhaps renaming the worksheets posted here to avoid conflict with the commercial Rocket Math curriculum he has developed over at http://www.rocketmath.net. You can read the discussion at the bottom of the Spaceship Math Strategy post, but given that this is supposed to be a low-stress activity on my end, changing the names of the worksheets to address everyone’s concern was definitely easy.

Meanwhile, if you’re a teacher looking to purchase a full curriculum for Rocket Math, be sure to check out Dr. Crawford’s new web site at the link above.

Or, if you’re not interested in worksheets or rockets or curricula, and you’d rather just bounce through a very well designed on-line math quiz, check out what this other Dad did at http://www.Rocket-Math.com.

Welcome to the Rocket Math Spaceship Math home page at DadsWorksheets.com.  Below you’ll find direct links to the Spaceship Math practice worksheets for all of the basic operations. Also, you’ll find a convenient web-based timer for administering practice tests.

Everything you need to rocket your kid’s math performance straight into orbit is below. If you find these materials useful, be sure to check out the rest of the math related content on the site. Good luck!

Please note that Spaceship Math is not the official RocketMath curriculum offered by R&D Instructional Solutions, and as per Dr. Crawford’s request in the discussion below, we’ve renamed the practice worksheets here as ‘Spaceship Math’ to avoid any confusion with the RocketMath commercial product.  Educators interested in using Rocket Math in their classrooms are encouraged to check out http://www.rocketmath.net for details.

Spaceship Math Strategies
Spaceship Math Addition Worksheets
Spaceship Math Subtraction Worksheets
Spaceship Math Multiplication Worksheets
Spaceship Math Division Worksheets
Spaceship Math Practice Timer

Printable Spaceship Math Progress Check Off Pages