Today we attended the funeral of my daughter’s best friend. Rachael Kligmann was 12 years old. She and her big sister were riding their bikes to the store when Rachael was hit by a minivan. Though her head was not hit, Rachael’s brain was shaken very badly. After 2 weeks in a coma she died on July 2nd.

At the funeral, someone described Rachael as someone who ENGAGED with life. I agree. She was a very caring person, loved babies and little children, was the capable nurse her mom relied upon when her mom had surgery, and wanted to be a midwife when she grew up. She was delighted to help deliver one baby. Rachael was also a great entrepreneur, and her vast quantities of babysitting jobs were only the beginning. I remember Rachael with a smile on her face and a lot of energy, even after a long day plus a high-energy class at AWANA club.

After a sleepover spent outside my home being eaten alive by mosquitoes, my daughter Anna was a little peaked in the morning from the rough night. Not Rachael. She was all smiles at the breakfast table. She had enjoyed the adventure.

While we understand that Rachael knew Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior and we know that she’s in heaven with Him, we miss her very, very much.

This week the test drive user name and password for The Math Worksheet Site is Rachael’s user name from an internet board on which she participated. This seems to be a silly little thing to do in her memory, but it’s at least something I can do. Her favorite color was purple. So she was the Purple Princess.

We love you, Rachael.

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I’ve copied here a poem written by Rachael’s dad:

The Purple Princess
by Pete Kligmann

There was a purple princess who was her daddy’s joy.
She climbed the highest trees as fast as any boy.
Those who got to know her found her love was true.
She gave her life to Jesus, her friends, and family too.
She loved to cook, and ride, and play.
She had to read everyday.
She wanted to be just like her mama,
A midwife and mom to lots.
She learned all about childbirth and babysat many tots.
She often loved to sing out loud but rarely sang on key.
Her love and praise of Jesus Christ was plain for all to see.
Rachael, dear Rachael. I give you to your princely groom,
but always remember in your daddy’s heart,
there remains an empty room.

Ever since we put the beginnings of The Math Worksheet Site on the Internet, the worksheets were handed to you in the form of web pages. But they didn’t always print properly. This caused limitations for some people, particularly those accessing our site on a Mac. Web browsers interpret web pages; it’s not an exact science at all.

When we opened the subscribers area, we did so with worksheets in PDF format. This was intended to solve the formatting problems some computers had, and also give us much greater control over the page layout. We could do more interesting things with graphics, for example. PDF is supposed to be an exact science. (We’ve discovered that it’s not quite an exact science, but it’s pretty close.)

Today we brought PDF worksheets over to the free side of The Math Worksheet Site. You do need Acrobat Reader installed in order for your computer to properly display the PDF worksheets.

Our selection of topics on the free side remains the same. Some of the selection pages have more customization choices now.

For those who have older computers, slower Internet connections, or just don’t have Acrobat Reader on their computers, we have kept the web page worksheets available also, on another page.

We hope the PDF worksheets on the free side of The Math Worksheet Site are even more useful to you.

We think they look better.

–Denise

We have received a few requests for math games. I’d like to share about a simple math game you can make from one of the worksheet titles on our site.

Needed

• A printed One Hundred Chart which begins with any number other than 0. On the free side of our site, use the 1 through 100 option. Subscribers have other options also.
• One die.
• Objects to use as markers, one for each player. Coins, markers from other games, water-bottle caps… anything that will fit within a square on the chart.

To Play

Start each marker on the first square. Roll the die and add the number on the die to the number under the marker. Move the marker to the sum of those two numbers. Hand the die to the next player. The next player rolls the die, adds the result to the number on which his marker sits, and moves his marker to a new total. The first player to pass the last square wins.

Example: Kirk’s marker is on the 1. Kirk rolls a 3. Kirk adds 3 plus 1 and moves his marker to the 4. Kirk hands the die to Susie. Susie’s marker is on the 1. Susie rolls the die and it gives her a 5. Susie adds 5 plus 1 and moves her marker to the 6.

Variations

Include the requirement that in order to win the player must land exactly on the last number. This will add a few more rounds to the game as players roll and roll until the die gives them the exact number needed.

Begin with the markers on the largest number and subtract each roll of the die from the position of the marker. Move the marker to the difference (the new total). Repeat. The first player to pass the smallest number wins the game.

Multiplication and division are other variations. Those games are MUCH faster to complete!

Variations for Subscribers

Before you click “Create It,” choose to leave some of the numbers on the chart blank. If the student lands on a blank space, he must write in the correct number.

Use a One Hundred Chart that begins with a number other than 1. Options include 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800 and 900.

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I hope you enjoy playing some games with your student(s) and help them do a little math along the way.

–Denise

We published our privacy policy today. I’ll post it here on the blog also:

You are our valued subscriber. No one outside The Math Worksheet Site has the right to get your personal information from us. No one.

Why do we ask for your e-mail address?

• It allows you to reset your password if you happen to forget it.
• It helps us identify your account if you communicate with us.
• We send you one polite expiration notice 7 days before your subscription’s expiration. If you are paying by purchase order, we will send you an additional notice 30 days before your subscription expires.

Giving us your phone number is useful for communication when e-mail doesn’t seem to be working. Sometimes spam filters and technical problems over which we have no control make e-mail communication impossible. Phone contact is a backup, used only if e-mail isn’t working and we need to reach you regarding your account.

Behind this web site are real people. Real people who detest spam and hang up on telephone solicitors. We will neither send you spam nor call for the purpose of soliciting.

Thank you for trusting us with your e-mail address and phone number. We value your trust.

I’m so excited about our newest worksheet title!! Today Scott added CrossNumber Puzzles in the Miscellaneous category at the bottom of the subscribers area home page. Think crossword puzzles, except that math problems must be solved to get the answer needed in the puzzle. It’s much more fun to solve a puzzle then to just do a ‘regular’ worksheet!

You can choose between three sizes of puzzles: 7 x 7, 8 x 8 and 10 x 10.

For the types of problems, you can pick any combination of the following:

• Addition a + b
• Subtraction a - b
• Multiplication a x b
• Mixed Problems a x b + c
• Order of Operations a + b x c
• Associative Property (a + b) x c

This morning my daughter grabbed a crossnumber puzzle from her dad’s “testing” stack and worked the whole puzzle just for fun.

I hope the students in your life think they’re fun, too.

–Denise

We have welcomed inquiries from those who would like to get a “sneak preview” of the subscribers area. When people write and ask, we give about a week’s worth of free access. But starting today, we’re publicizing this policy.

So, for those careful shoppers who like to SEE before they buy (like me!), just write to us and ask for a test drive. I’ll send you a user name and password that will be good for about a week.

Write to us at TestDrive (at) TheMathworksheetSite (dot) com (change the obvious).

–Denise

Sometimes I get a chuckle out of the ironies and realities of a home-based business. Maybe you can get a chuckle out of my stories, too.

We had a problem with one subscription from a teacher, and I needed to talk with him by phone as I didn’t have his e-mail address. I left messages and he called me back several days later. When he called, my teen daughter answered the phone nicely and professionally. She handed the phone to me. At that moment I had a 2 year-old on my lap and a 5 year-old in a time out a few feet away. (Said 5-yo is, *ahem,* still learning to sit quietly during her time outs.)

All of a sudden, THE place to be was next to my desk, and there were three more children talking to each other or me while I was trying to be ‘professional’ and take care of this subscriber.

I don’t trust myself to hit the ‘mute’ button on the phone quickly, as it’s next to the ‘off’ button. So I waved wildly at the children, trying to “shoo” them away while calmly explaining to the teacher the situation with his subscription. The children finally figured out what Mom meant by her strange waving when their dad told them to go upstairs.

I was finally left with just the 2 year-old on my lap and the unpredictable 5 year-old in time out.

With the teacher working at his computer at the same time, we got his subscription input and activated.

I had to chuckle at the difference between the professional appearance I tried to present over the phone vs. the family-centered, noisy reality behind the scenes.

–Denise

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

That’s the first line of a poem, and it’s a good policy, too. The spam protection plug-in we tried didn’t stop the spam comments. The second one didn’t do the job either. Then when I got 61 spam comments posted to this blog in half a day, my calm requests turned into rather urgent pleading that Scott find and install something that would WORK!

We’re now on our third spam-foiling plug-in for this blog and it seems to be doing the job. It doesn’t have the math equations I liked so much, but it lets us customize a list of words. So we picked math-related words and choose to be happy with that.

This is a relatively small thing, but life is better when it’s spam-free!

–Denise

A few days ago I began getting deluged with spam comments to this blog. Over 100 spam comments to delete from my e-mail inbox, delete from my e-mail trash, AND delete from the moderation que on this blog. (I receive notification by e-mail when a comment is submitted.) Three actions for every spam comment. 3 x 100 = ___. Ugh. Triple ugh.

Scott recently added a feature to help reduce spam comments. Now people need to answer a question before a comment may be submitted. Spam bots won’t be able to answer the question and their crud won’t go through.

The part that really tickles me, though, is that the anti-spam question isn’t just a “read the funny letters” question. It is a MATH question!! Something like, “Sum of 3 + 4?” How appropriate for The MATH Worksheet Site’s blog!!

Maybe you’re rolling your eyes and thinking, “Denise obviously isn’t getting enough sleep, if such small things delight her so much.” But hey, I like it!

–Denise

We finally got FTP access last night and were able to move The Math Worksheet Site to a new hosting company. This new server is very fast! I’m thrilled!

We still have a few details to wrap up, and probably much to learn about running our own virtual private server (VPS). But at least we’re more in control and not as dependent on other people. Afer our recent frustrations, this is really appealing.

Domain Name System servers are still propagating our new IP address. A few people are still accessing the site at the old location. Those who try to subscribe and run into an error that says, “Can’t locate Email/Valid.pm in @INC” are looking at the old location. By 10 pm Mountain Time Friday night, everyone should be accessing The Math Worksheet Site at its new location, and everything is fully functional there.

(Of course, since I’m connected to the updated site right now, the people who are getting that error aren’t going to be seeing this message for a day or two!)

I feel like we should have an open house, put up party decorations, and lay out trays of food, but that’s perhaps kinda silly for a web site. I really feel like we’re in a new HOME.

Thanks for rejoicing with me!

–Denise