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PracticalDad Solution:  Basic Math with Graph Paper

Education matters, and don't be surprised to find yourself working with the kids on spelling, science, history and math.  Especially math.

For many younger elementary kids, it isn't necessarily the actual addition or subtraction that gets them, but the constant inability to keep digits in the proper columns.  It's something that made me crazy for awhile until a teacher shared an idea that I still use years later.  Math problems on graph paper.

This gentleman suggested that when the kids are doing math problems, they do so on graph paper.  Each numeric digit gets a single grid on the graph paper and the next number goes into the grid immediately below it, so the kids can see that all digits in the ones place line up, as well as those in the tens and hundreds place.  The result should be a decline in errors made by carelessness and haste.

And it was, which is why I keep a pad or two of graph paper available.

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