Are you spending too much time helping your kid with his/her addition and subtraction homework? Do they find it boring to the extent that they do not want to do it? Well, that’s a common concern with parents, how to make studies interesting and easy to learn for their children. We have compiled some of the tricks and activities for you to make addition/subtraction exercises easy for your kids.
10 Activities That Will Make Addition Easier For Children
The first thing to do is ensure that your child knows the meanings of adding and subtracting. Also, you cannot rush, attempt to make your child learn the tricks at his pace, not yours. And the basic mantra of practicing again and again never fails. The below tricks will make it easier to grasp the fundamentals of mathematics.
- Do It With Real Objects: It’s easier for the kids to remember pictures and visuals. You can use coins, cloth-pegs, pencils etc. and divide them in two groups and ask the child to combine them together and then count altogether. Like if they want to do 4+2, give them two groups of coins (group 1: 4 coins and group 2: 2 coins) and the ask them to combine and count all and tell you what result they got. You can do it the same way for subtraction
- Play With Characters: You can tell your kids some stories about numbers. For example, two cats were playing. The first one had 2 apples and the second had 4 apples. When the second one gives 2 of his apples to first one, how many does each have? Fun ain’t it?
- Pushing The Teddy Bear: You can play this game with kindergarten kids. Give them two sets of teddy bears and push them together and count all. They will love this way of learning
- With Addition Factors: Teach them that the number 10 can be written as 1+ 9 and also 2+8 and then 3+7, 4+6 and 5+5. Gradually you can use bigger numbers like 15 and 20. Start the addition with the bigger number. For example they will find 3+8 difficult, but 8+3 easier
- Make Number Boxes: You can play a game with your child, where you make one box for one number. Here, number 1 box will be smallest then number 2 will bigger and 3 will be bigger than 2 and so on. Now join two boxes like 2 and 1 and check with which box’s size it resembles. In this case two joined boxes will be of the size of number 3 box
- Play On The Staircase: This is a very easy method of doing addition and subtraction with your kid. Draw numbers 1 to 20 on the staircase. If you want to do 5 – 3, ask the kid to stand on number 5 and then climb down 3 steps and the number they land on, in this case 2, is the result. You can play this game for addition also. Suppose you want to do 3+5, ask the child to stand on number 3 and climb steps up five times, the number they land on is the result. The kids will enjoy this method as they get to hop on the staircase
- Number Grids: You can draw a number grid and write numbers on it may be from 1 to 50. You can start with a bigger number and move backwards in the grid. Let him color a square after subtracting every 5 numbers. The kid will observe the number pattern in the grid and will learn easily. Same way can be used for addition. Ask your child to color a square after every 4 or 5 or 2 numbers
- Simply Counting The Numbers: Teach your child to count from one given number to the other and counting back. For example, if they want to do 39-7, simply ask them to count back seven times from 36 and ask the result. Kids should know the basic counting from one number to the other and also counting back
- Number Lines: Draw a number line and ask the kid to make arcs from one number to the other while counting. Ask the kid to subtract 4 from 6, using the number line. So he will start from 6 and makes 4 arcs, from 6 to 5, 5 to 4, 4 to 3 and 3 to 2, So like this he will reach number 2. He will learn 6 – 4 = 2. Do it for addition also if you like
- Drawing lines and cutting: For addition draw lines and count all together and for subtraction draw lines and then cut them. For example, for subtraction, 8-2, let them draw 8 lines and then in your turn you cut 2 lines, and ask them to count the remaining lines and tell the result. To add 4+6, give pen/chalk to the child and ask them to draw lines, then you can take turn, he draws 4 lines and you draw 6 lines, and then he counts all the lines and tells the result.
There is not only one best method to teach your child addition/subtraction. The best idea is to introduce them to a number of methods and let them decide which method they are comfortable with. All of these games are fun to play with the kindergarten kids. Believe me, they will remember each game and love to play with you.
