Playdates

Playdate focus

Enjoy adding of small numbers with totals up to 5.

Storybook properties

This has counting up to 6, with colors and shapes.

Activities properties

These involve very small counting and adding. For now, only use small sums (up to around 6) for the Bonded Groups puzzles.

Adding by counting

For a long time your child has been doing adding problems by counting. If they were asked to add two things to three things, that was done by counting all five things. As your child mastered Counting On, some of that counting was replaced by starting with one of the numbers, say 3 in this example, and then counting the two remaining things. This experience with counting has also allowed your child to visualize and master the ideas of 1 more and 2 more, which has made adding 1 and 2 much easier.

Using fingers

Children of this age will benefit greatly from having manipulatives to use when doing addition. It helps cement their understanding of the numbers in terms of quantities. Of course, the manipulative that is always available to them is their fingers. When doing our example of adding two to three, they can put up two fingers on one hand, three fingers on the other hand, and bring the two hands together. Another way to do it is to raise two fingers on one hand, raise three more fingers on that same hand, and then see a total of five fingers raised.

Add 0 sometimes

Mix in adding 0 sometimes. It is easy to do, and it is important conceptually for your child.

Subtracting up to 5

The ideas behind practicing subtraction are similar to those for addition. If your child is going to subtract three from five, have your chid raise five fingers and then lower three of them. Their familiarity with one less and two less will probably make subtracting one and two very easy.

Subtract 0 and everything sometimes

Mix in questions where you subtract 0 sometimes. Also mix in questions where you subtract everything. For example, if you have three bits of food and you eat all of them, how many do you have left?

Memorizing

As you ask your child to do various adding and subtracting problems that come along, your child will become more and more familiar with them and will eventually memorize them. While it is desirable to eventually make the recall of these facts automatic and easy for your child, there is no hurry.

Other math facts

During this time your child’s exposure to adding won’t be restricted to those whose sum is 5 or less, and that is fine. For example, your child will probably have learned to add 1 or 2 to all the numbers up to 10. Your child may also have begun to learn the adding twin facts, such as 3 + 3 or 4 + 4.