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This is for all of the first grade teachers who are trying to teach addition and subtraction facts to students just beginning to understand the process. I’ve come up with a few memory clues for some of the facts we’ve learned so far. Maybe some of these will work for you also.
The Birthday Facts: These are the plus one facts. The one is a birthday candle and the other number is one having a birthday. For little minds who are still learning that they do know the next number in the sequence, saying that # is having a birthday usually gets a quick response. They know the next number when it’s related to birthdays.
The Neighbor Facts: These are the subtraction facts that equal one. The two numbers are neighbors and neighbors always equal one. (example: 5-4=1)
The Back-up Facts: These are the minus one facts. You back up one (and you can even add the back-up beep, beep).
The Duck (or Monkey) Facts: This is another clue for the minus one facts. We learned a little song about “Five Little Ducks Went Out to Play” and when the mama duck quacks only four come back. It’s a countdown song and my students had no trouble knowing how many ducks came back each time. I started asking students who continued to be puzzled by minus one how many ducks came back. Suddenly they knew! It all has to do with making the correct connections! You could also use “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed”.
I teach CLE’s first grade math and the first couple of books have a lot of material to cover and the facts come fairly quickly. These are just a few tips I’ve applied this year. And if you haven’t watched the video of Ruth Anna demonstrating Rekenreks, you should.
Do you have any other good math tips to share?
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All math teachers of beginners should be sure to have the numbers from one to about twenty on the floor. You can use rubber disks with numbers written on them if you can’t mark your floor. Students can stand on a number and move ahead three for adding three; back two for subtracting two, etc. Other applications include stepping ahead on even numbers or odd numbers. For an additional activity to develop number sense, you can number steps if there’s a stairs in your building. Going higher to each added number and lower for each subtracted number helps them understand the increase of addition/decrease of subtraction.
On another note–steps can be labeled with notes of the scale, with a student stepping up a step if he hums so; then la, etc. For an added element, blocks of wood of appropriate thickness can be laid on the proper steps to provide the “half steps.”
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