What’s Missing?
Count a small number of little things. Hide a few while your child looks away. When your child looks back, ask how many are hidden.
Example
Suppose you have 6 raisins on a table. Have your child look away and cover 2 of them with a bowl. When your child looks back, count out the 4 visible raisins and ask how many raisins are under the bowl if there are 6 in total.
Reasoning
One way for your child to figure this out is to “count on” from 4 to 6 – as your child counts 4, 5, and 6, start with 0 fingers raised and raise one finger at a time to arrive at 2 raised fingers. Similarly, your child can do almost the same thing by “counting down” from 6 to 4. Seeing that 4 plus 2 more is 6 is tied together with taking 2 away from 6 to get 4 is great practice for understanding fact families.