Homeschooling Idea: Roll Your Own Math Worksheets
Kids love rolling dice, so have them generate their own math homework!
Okay, I admit it — I’m pretty nerdy. I first started playing role-playing games back in high school, which was more years ago than I’m willing to admit. As 2019 rolled toward its close in blissful innocence, I gave my kids a role-playing game for Christmas. It was a game I wrote myself, a sci-fi adventure involving intelligent space monkeys searching for the mad scientist who took away their humanity.
One thing that stood out for me is how much the kids enjoyed rolling those RPG dice. So as I started planning for the 2020–2021 school year, I imagined we’d start the day with math drills, having the kids roll dice (more sides for the grade four kiddo, fewer sides for the grade two kiddo), and just saying, “blue plus green” or “red times yellow”, referring to the colours of the dice.
Then it occurred to me to throw in an extra little layer and create blank math worksheets. The idea is for the kids to roll the dice to fill in the blanks, then perform the function and provide the answer:
It does add a bit of work for me, since I have to do the calculation in order to figure out if the answer is correct, but I assure you it’s not too hard. And if you’re tired, you can just pull out the ol’ calculator, right?
