8th Grade Math Worksheets
About Our 8th Grade Math Worksheets
Here’s what you need to know about 8th grade math and the worksheets to learn the topics.
First off, at the 8th grade level, your learner is about to complete middle school and move on to high school. The name of the math game is algebra.
As a parent, it’s time to decide the math track of your son or daughter. If they are at all interested in college or college prep, they need to get through algebra, bare minimum. Many fields of study require advanced math that can only be considered with a strong algebra background. Learn more here about making a 4-year high school plan.
It’s totally fine to not be ready for algebra in 8th grade. If this is the case, you can find information about the 7th grade pre-algebra topics here.
Our 8th grade math worksheets in PDF format pick up at this point, assuming that pre-algebra has been covered. They cover the traditional Algebra 1 topics. If your learner is ready for Algebra 2 topics, check out this article about 9th grade math.
Algebra 1 Readiness
Our 8th grade math worksheets in PDF format cover the Algebra 1 stuff that you need to know to move on with math. Next comes Algebra 2. Most learners spend at least a couple years going through all these algebras. So don’t rush, and don’t be afraid to go back and review.
Many parents and students just want to be done. They are constantly racing forward into new topics, when the old topics are not mastered. This approach is going to get you into a lot of trouble with algebra. And you won’t know you’re in trouble until you are in WAY in over your head. Don’t go there, as people waste years of time this way.
It’s more about having strong fundamentals and knowing how to write the steps down on paper. You’re not going to get anywhere with algebra by just plowing ahead into more advanced material. Don’t be tempted to rush.
So, as a parent, if you notice your learner is struggling with a multi-step algebra problem, it’s time to go back to pre-algebra. Most of the individual steps in a given algebra problem are relatively straightforward; however, it can seem difficult because one needs to combine a series of steps in the correct order. If this isn’t happening, it’s probably because the learner doesn’t fully grasp the individual steps, which are probably pre-algebra material and not algebra proper. Go back. Don’t rush forward.
8th Grade Math Worksheets PDF Download
Structure of the Worksheets
The 8th grade math worksheets are in PDF format. They are printer friendly, with tons of empty white space for working out problems with a pencil. You really need to put the pencil to the paper to learn algebra. There are all sorts of funny little symbols to learn. And it’s extremely important to be able to write them down the way they are meant to be used. To a properly trained eye, these sequences of funny symbols tell the story of math. They have meaning, much like a well-worded persuasive argument.
It’s fine to use a calculator for the arithmetic involved in algebra. It is, however, fundamentally impossible to do algebra with a calculator. The purpose of algebra is to learn how to manipulate expressions containing unknown quantities, often represented by the letter x. The thing about calculators and computers is that they are designed to work with numbers, not unknowns. The big idea here is grasping the fact that computers and calculators can process numbers, but they fundamentally cannot solve our problems. Only humans can solve problems, not machines.
The purpose of algebra is to be able to show the steps used to solve a given problem. It is not about getting a correct answer. So, make sure your learner is writing down all the important steps in the problems. If that’s not happening, consider it a good thing, because you’ve just identified the next topic that needs to be systematically attacked until it is learned well. You can find complete video support with all the details to all the problems here.
The worksheets are in 9 files known as Problem Sets 1-9. Problem sets 1-4 cover the pre-algebra materials posted here. For this reason, we have just posted PS 5-9 below. Here is more information here describing the worksheets’ contents.
In algebra, nobody cares about getting a correct answer.
In fact, there might not even be a correct answer for a given problem. A big idea is that some problems have no answers, some problems do have a single correct answer, however many, many math problems have multiple answers. That’s right, there can be more than one correct answer to a single problem. You’re main responsibility is knowing exactly how many answers they are going to be to a given problem. Just to repeat that: It’s more important to know how many correct answers there are than to actually find those correct answers.
Another one of the big ideas that we touch upon is that algebra problems exist in families. For example, some types of problems are always going to have exactly two answers, and never just one answer. As a math student, again, it is your responsibility to know how many answers are going to exist for a given problem. Generally speaking, they are going to be zero, one, or two answers for a given problem at this 8th grade math level.