As a homeschooling parent, finding the right educational resources for my daughter can be a real challenge. The market is flooded with low-quality content, especially when it comes to arithmetic worksheets. If you’ve ever searched for math worksheets for elementary-aged kids, you know what I mean—most options involve signing up for a subscription service that often delivers generic content that doesn’t suit your child’s specific learning needs.
That’s why I created doocMath. I wanted a tool that could generate dynamic and customizable worksheets to help teach my daughter arithmetic in a way that suits her unique needs at any given time. With doocMath, worksheets are generated dynamically, meaning no two worksheets are exactly the same, unlike most of the aforementioned paid services which only offer static content. By tweaking a few parameters and choosing from a growing list of worksheet types, I can create the perfect set of problems for her current level.
As she grows and her math skills develop, I plan to expand the range of worksheets doocMath can generate. And the best part? doocMath is free and open-source software (FOSS), so you don’t have to deal with subscriptions or paywalls—just quality, customizable worksheets.
WHAT IS DOOCMATH?
doocMath is a command-line tool that allows you to create customizable arithmetic worksheets in PDF format. It currently supports addition, subtraction, multiplication, and long division. I plan to add more worksheet types on a regular basis. You can specify the type of problems, the number of digits in the operands, and the number of pages you’d like to generate.
Additionally, there are two special types of worksheets that I created specifically to help my daughter understand some concepts she is currently struggling with: borrowing and carrying over.
Borrow Subtraction Worksheets: These worksheets consist of subtraction problems that always require borrowing. At least one column in each problem has a minuend where the corresponding digit in the subtrahend is smaller, necessitating the act of borrowing from the next most significant digit.
Carry-Over Addition Worksheets: In these worksheets, every addition problem is designed to involve carrying over. This means that at least one column sum in each problem is guaranteed to be 10 or greater, requiring the act of carrying over.
I love that I’m able to put my programming skills to use in such a way that is as near and dear to my heart as my daughter’s education.
GETTING STARTED WITH DOOCMATH
For step-by-step instructions and usage examples, head over to the doocMath GitHub repository. The README file provides all the information you need to get started, from installation to generating your first worksheet.
CONCLUSION
doocMath has been a labor of love, born out of a desire to create a more personalized and effective way to teach my daughter arithmetic. I’m glad to have been able to use my programming skills to build a tool that not only meets her needs but also has the potential to benefit many others. Whether you’re a parent, teacher, or student, doocMath offers a flexible, customizable solution for generating math worksheets.
I’m excited about where doocMath is headed! There are so many features and worksheet types I want to add!
If you’re looking for a tool to help with arithmetic practice or want to contribute to its growth, I invite you to check out the GitHub repository. Your feedback and contributions are welcome as I continue to expand and improve doocMath.