No Calculator Math Practice | Mental Strategies and Word Problems with Answers

No calculator math practice with mental strategies

This no calculator math practice packet is a 13 page worksheet with 80 questions for grades 3 to 7. Students work with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division using only their heads and a pencil.

The questions begin with quick multiple choice and true or false items, move to a Number Bank section where students find the missing number, and end with short answer calculations and word problems that must be solved mentally.

Teachers who need no calculator math practice for a mental math unit or a fluency routine will find four sections of 20 questions here, and the packet comes with an answer key, an answer sheet and a lesson plan.

What’s on the pages

The worksheet has four sections of 20 questions each, and each one has its own heading and directions.

• Mental addition and subtraction: 10 multiple choice questions and 10 true or false statements, such as 250 + 350, 950 – 420 and 500 – 185.
• Mental multiplication and division: 10 multiple choice questions and 10 true or false statements, such as 96 divided by 8, 16 x 3 and 25 x 8.
• Mental arithmetic completion: 20 fill in the blank questions with a Number Bank, such as 21 + ___ = 50, 8 x ___ = 56 and 225 divided by ___ = 15.
• Short answer calculations and problem solving: 20 questions, such as 150 pages to read with 65 read in the morning, 45 marbles plus 38 more, and 75 x 4 calculated mentally.

The Number Bank section works like a puzzle, because students think about the missing number instead of looking for an answer to a given problem.

What’s in the download

• Student worksheet: 13 pages
• Answer key: 14 pages, with a short explanation after each answer
• Answer sheet: 4 pages
• Lesson plan: 1 page

The four parts add up to 32 pages, and everything comes as PDF.

How to use this no calculator math practice

The lesson plan is set for 60 minutes: 10 minutes of warm-up and instruction, 40 minutes of worksheet practice and 10 minutes of review and discussion. Its objectives are to build efficient mental strategies for all four operations, to use techniques such as rounding compensation and chunking without a calculator, and to solve real-world word problems mentally with accuracy and speed.

The plan begins with a 10 minute warm-up that demonstrates strategies such as compensation for addition and subtraction. The materials list a printed worksheet, a whiteboard and dry-erase markers for strategy demonstrations, and a timer for optional speed challenges.

Model a strategy aloud before students try it. For 950 – 420, you might take away 400 and then 20, and say each step so that students can copy the thinking.

Close each session with a short discussion of the methods students used, since several routes can lead to the same answer.

The answer sheet keeps the worksheet clean for reuse, and the answer key gives a short explanation after every answer.

This set of mental math strategies worksheets fits a unit on number sense. The mental arithmetic with a Number Bank adds variety, and the no calculator math practice with answer key pages makes it easy for a helper to check the work after a timed session.

Many teachers search for mental math strategies practice, and this packet is built for exactly that kind of practice.

Where it fits

Use it for morning work, math centers, fluency practice, homework or review before a test. Homeschool families can work through one section a day.

Take a look at the preview pages before you buy, so you can see the worksheet, the answer key and the answer sheet.

For more practice, browse the math worksheets, the wider set of printable worksheets or the whole shop.

Many teachers use this no calculator math practice in a weekly routine, one section per day, and repeat the set after a few weeks to see growth.

Frequently Asked Questions