My incredibly talented friend over at Little LDS Ideas made the cutest little simple math worksheets. She sweetly let us use them for a fun math activity with my 5 year old.
Check out the free printable here!
- Click Here to Print Four Small Additions
- Click Here to Print Large Addition
- Click Here to Print Four Small Subtractions
- Click Here to Print Large Subtraction
Supplies
- printable
- dice
- a small manipulative (we like sugar so we would go with conversational hears, chocolate chips, mini marshmallows…or even grapes if we were feeling healthy-ish)
- pencil
- Laminator (optional) or Plastic Sheet Protector
- washable marker ( NOT dry erase)
- damp paper towel
Set up
- simply print your worksheet
- Next I colored each half of the lips a different color to help clarify (not necessary)
- slip it in your protector or laminate it
- YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO THIS. I am obsessed with making things last…forever, so I love to have worksheets be reusable. You can just write on your paper.
Activity Time
After lamenting our worksheets my 5 year old and I got busy. First Miss 5 would roll a dice. Next she would place 1 chocolate on the pink side of the lips. My daughter would count out the number and then write a 1 in the small square at the bottom of the paper. Next she would roll the dice again and place the 3 chocolates on the other side. She would again count and record the number. Next we talked about how the + sign meant add, or put together. We would squash all the chocolates together and count them again. We put the total in the last box.
As we repeated the activity I would put the chocolate out on both sides of the heart. Also after going through the steps a few times I no longer needed to tell her what to do, I would ASK her what she was doing. “Why are you counting all the chocolate now?” When I let her be the teacher she is really in her element.
For subtraction I’d start out simple again. After writing down the 2 numbers we talked about how there was a new sign in between them, the – sign. I explained how that meant the 1st group had 6 the the minus sign meant we needed to take 3 away from the first group. (Obviously take really means EAT) Then we would count up what remained. Finally she would write down that number in the final square.
TIP: If your child is struggling with this idea instead of putting chocolate in the 2nd half of the lips you could place a different item, maybe a small ‘mobile’ toy. We used our small Trolls figures. That way when we count up the 2 Trolls I can tell Miss 5 that they are supposed to carry 2 chocolates away. REMEMBER little children are physical active creatures so any excuse for some movement is awesome.
Alterations:
If your child is too young to write you could
- write it for your little
- cut out a few small squares and write the numbers out for your child, then have them slide the correct number into the empty square
- not worry about the written number yet and simply focus on counting.
You can also turn this into a game by rolling a dice! (This works perfect for the 4 small printable!!!)
For the 4 smaller worksheets we skipped the chocolate and just made dots in the lips. If your child still needed the treat you could let them eat the final numbers?
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