Number Sense: Teaching addition and subtraction to Pre-K children and a FREEBIE!!!!!

Hello All! I truly hope you are enjoying your winter. I know many of you have had several snow days, here in Texas we have had 2 ice days, which is unheard of down here! This week my class started working intentionally on addition and subtraction concepts. While I always try to connect simple addition and subtraction concepts to my numbers lesson it is very informal. I am now planning the majority of my number lesson on addition and subtraction concepts.I know my class is ready to begin these concepts when they can count to 50 forwards and backwards, can pattern easily, can put numbers to 20 in order and can easily sort by color. With all of this in place teaching the basic addition and subtraction strategies should be easy! (Well, we will see!) So, we started this week with 10 frames,you can easily make your own or print out free sets through a google search. Each child then has 10 objects to use to count. I start with addition problems to 5. I instruct the children to "place 1 counter on the ten frame and then add one more, how many do we have now? So, 1+1=2" and so on and so forth. After they can add to 5 easily I move onto addition up to 10 and then 20, giving each child a filled in 10 frame and a blank 10 frame taped together. After practicing these addition concepts a few times we move onto concrete work. Using worksheets that we do TOGETHER (I can't stress this enough, do not let them go on their own yet!)we practice filling in 10 frames, writing addition sentences and figuring out the answer. Below is a picture of one of these worksheets, I give each child the worksheet on a clipboard and I work on a copy with them.

I also use graphing to help teach addition. I like to use anchor chart size graphs and work on bar graphs for how tall children are, what winter animal they like the best etc. Below is a graphing sheet we completed after working on a large graph together with the same concept. i took the same pictures, enlarged them and placed them on the anchor chart. We then completed the graph as a class. The children went back to their seats and completed a graph worksheet to show me what they learned. Throughout this lesson I would say things like. "We counted 4 marshmallows, I want to add 2 more, how many will I have? That is correct 6, so 4+2=6, now is 6 an even or odd number? yes it is even and is 6 more or less than 4, that's right more so we were adding not subtracting."

You can see how we are working on multiple concepts during each lesson that all help with number sense and the concepts I want them to understand. Notice we have not focused on the numbers or number writing themselves, we are focused on the concept. The concept is the key to the children learning number sense. We connect the actual numbers as they show us that they are strong in the concepts. To begin working on number sense like this you can download my Free Valentine 10 and 20 frame freebie file on TpT, I hope you enjoy teaching your children all about numbers, solidifying concepts and letting up on the actual number will increase a child's ability to think through math problems in the future. Enjoy!