Printing out a color by number worksheet for your class is always a quick go-to activity choice for math – probably almost every teacher has done it. But have you ever wondered to yourself – are these color by number worksheets actually teaching my students anything about math?? Well, don’t worry! When used correctly, color by number worksheets can be a valuable tool in helping your students master certain math skills.
Here are my top tips for using color by number worksheet packets to help your students actually get better at math!
Tip 1: Choose a Skill To Practice
If you want your color by number worksheets to be effective, you need to have a plan for which skill you are trying to help your students learn.
The most common skill to target is math fact fluency. This is such an important skill for students across all grades to be working on, and color by number math worksheets are certainly a valid source of fluency practice. So depending on your grade level, you can decide if you want your students to be working on math facts with sums to 10, or maybe subtraction, or maybe early multiplication facts. I love using these to help my students learn their addition math facts to 10.
Tip 2: Get Specific
Okay, so let’s say you want your students to practice their addition math facts to 10. Now you need to get even more specific. Which fact fluency skill are you going to zero in on?
Are your students still learning one more and one less? Did you just teach ways to make 10 and your students need extra practice? The more specific you are, the more meaningful the practice will be. Printing off any old “addition color by number worksheet” is not really going to help your students. But if you find a “doubles and doubles plus one facts color by number worksheet” because that’s what you’re teaching right now – that is going to be helpful!
Possible Specific Skills To Target:
- Identifying Numbers to 10
- Adding 1 or Subtracting 1
- Adding Doubles and Doubles Plus 1 under 10
- Ways to Make 8, 9, and 10
- Subtracting 1 and 2
- Multiplying 1, 2, and 3
- Multiples of 4
- Etc…
You can see those skills get pretty darn specific – as in, they are specific to one or two lessons you would teach.
This is truly where the gold lies with color by number math worksheets – when you can align them with a specific skill you are teaching at the time.
Tip 3: Teach the Strategy First
Once you know which skill you are targeting, you need to make sure that you first teach the necessary strategies. In other words, the color by number worksheets are a source of application and practice – They certainly aren’t a replacement for your math lesson.
For example, if I want my students to get more practice with one more and one less, I need to first teach them a lesson with several strategies to solve one more and one less problems. For example, we could practice counting up or down on a number line, and then in our heads. Maybe we practice drawing a dot as we count up or down one. Or we practice using our fingers to help us go up or down. Once we’ve gone over these strategies, then I can use the color by number printables as a way to practice these strategies.
Skipping this step will unfortunately lead to the color by number worksheets becoming meaningless busy work. We don’t want students left to their own devices to find ways to solve each problem on the worksheet. We want them practicing the strategies we taught them!
Tip 4: Differentiate Your Color By Number Worksheet Packs
Inevitably, even if you are teaching the same strategies and skills to all your students, they are going to end up in different places and have different needs.
One of the best ways to make color by number worksheets a meaningful tool is to differentiate them for your students.
This means different students will be working on different worksheets, depending on which math skills they are currently mastering. One way to do this is to have different sets of color by number worksheets that get progressively harder. Each worksheet set should target a different fluency skill (probably in the order they were taught). Then as students demonstrate mastery with one set of worksheets, they can graduate to the next.
I find that if I have these worksheets ready to go, it’s easy to have students working on different things. When a student finishes one set, I check to see they’ve reached a good level of independence with that skill. Then I can just hand them the next set.
Tip 5: Change It Up!
Let’s be honest, doing the same thing over and over again can get boring! Even if you have an endless supply of cute pictures for your color by number worksheets, eventually students are going to get tired of doing the same activity.
So even though we’ve established some great habits for making color by number worksheet packs an effective part of your math teaching, we also want to mix in some variety for students.
Did you know that there are lots of different types of color by number printable worksheets? Most people think of a clipart picture divided into different sections that you slowly color in to reveal the image. But there are lots more!
There are secret messages, mazes, pixel pictures, riddles, hidden paths, and probably even more that I don’t know about! Mixing and matching these options will keep students loving their color by number work, even if you’ve been using them all year long.
Color By Number Worksheets Rock!
Hopefully, you now have some great ideas for how to use those super cute color by number worksheet packs you’ve been saving! As long as you’re aligning them with your curriculum and your students’ needs, you can rest assured they are benefiting your students and helping them get stronger with their math skills.
What do you think? Will you be trying out some color by number worksheets with your students this year? Let me know in the comments! xoxo Laura
You may also be interested in:
Math Activities 1st Grade Students Will Love
What Are Number Bonds and Why Are They So Important?
How To Use Color By Number In The Classroom And Not Feel Guilty
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