Activities for Families

Use compensation for sums between 11 and 18 to make them easier.

Giving away fingers

Suppose you’re adding 7 + 8. One person puts up 7 fingers and the other person puts up 8 fingers. Then, one person gives away as many fingers as are needed to put up 10 fingers on the other person’s hands. In this example, 7 + 8 could turn into 5 + 10 (giving away 2) or 10 + 5 (giving away 3).

Magic

Be dramatic and give away the fingers by having one person’s hand bang into the other person’s hand and having the fingers transfer “magically.”