Games to Teach Addition & Subtraction

By Kim Bentley, eHow Contributor

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Use creative games to help children learn addition and subtraction.

Teaching math to children starts with the concepts of addition and subtraction. These concepts can be difficult for students to grasp. Creativity and imagination in lesson planning can lead to productive games for comprehension. Allowing students to play hands-on games for understanding addition and subtraction can help them understand the processes.

1. Dice Game
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Pair students up and give each group two dice. Have one partner roll the first die and then the second partner can roll the other. They will record the two numbers they have rolled and add them together. Have the students work together for the class period playing the game and practicing their addition skills.

Counting with Chocolate Chips

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Buy a bag of chocolate chip cookies and pass one out to every student. Have children pick the chocolate chips out of the cookies. At the front of the classroom, write addition and subtraction problems on the board and have the students solve the problems with their chips. Make sure that you have a few extra chips on hand in case some cookies do not have many.

Calendar Days
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Give students a page from a calendar you have cut apart or make copies of a page with the copy machine. Pass out a cotton balls, buttons, raisins or other small objects for the students to use as markers. Instruct students to place their marker on a specific day, such as the fourth. Then make up a math problem by adding or subtracting days to get an answer. For example, students begin on the fourth and you tell them to add 2. This would bring them to the sixth or 4 + 2 = 6. Then they can continue on the sum and proceed to subtract an amount. The object is for everyone

in the class to end up on the same day. This will mean the addition and subtraction was performed correctly.

School Store
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Create a school store within the classroom. Stock the store with real items or pieces of paper that represent real items. For example, pencils or a paper cut out of a pencil. Price the items with a simple number, most likely a single digit. Give the students fake coins to come to the store and purchase items with. They will need to add the amounts of the items to purchase and subtract their total from the amount of money they have. You could price pencils at 3 cents, erasers at 2 cents and glue sticks at 4 cents. If a student has 10 cents and wants to purchase one of each of these items, they would need to add 3 + 2 + 4 = 9 and subtract this sum from their 10 cents.
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How to Teach First Grade Math Subtraction Tables

By an eHow Contributor

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Math can be one of the most frustrating subjects for students to master. However, it doesn't have to be. Building good number sense from the start helps make math easy and even fun for students to learn. One way for young students to gain confidence in their math class is to master subtraction tables. Learning subtraction tables from memory, not only makes harder mathematical operations easier, but it helps students understand patterns and numbers in their head. This makes the process of learning other math concepts easier.

Math manipulative's such as dried beans, game markers or store bought manipulative's like teddy bear counters.

Instructions
1. How To Teach First Grade Math Subtraction Tables

Gather your manipulative's. Math manipulative's can be anything from teddy bear counters to dried beans to game markers. It really doesn't matter what you use, but manipulative's are important to help the student see what he is actually doing. In addition to manipulatives, you should also buy flash cards.

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Before a student ever sees a problem like 5-2 = ?, he should be exposed to simple "some, some went away" word problems. An example would be: Five teddy bears were playing at the park. Two mommies came and took their teddy bears home. How many teddy bears are still at the park?" You would teach this by having a designated space that represents the park in the story and having the child put five teddy bears on the space. Then you simply act out the story. Doing this first will make the transition to subtraction tables seem very easily.

Introduce a set of facts one at a time. For example, any number minus zero always equals zero. You can usually introduce this along with the idea of "one less". For example, you might ask the student, "What is one less than 10." If the student is having trouble with the concept, you would pull out your manipulatives, count out 10 and then take away one. Repeating the process over and over again for a student that isn't quite getting it, might seem slow, but it is important. Repeat the idea of "one less" until the student is completely comfortable with the concept and can find the answer easily. At this point, you can also teach "two less" by using the same technique.

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You can continue teaching the rest of the math facts using the manipulative's to count out the answer. Every time you subtract by a new number, have the child do problems just subtracting that one number before you begin to mix other problems in. In this way, he or she may begin to see patterns between the answers.

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The old adage that practice makes perfect is certainly true here. Pull out your flash cards and continue to go over the basic facts with your student. Point out that subtraction is the opposite of addition by showing that adding the difference to one of the numbers in the problem equals the other number in the problem. You can also start teaching fact families. These are simply equations expressing the relationships between numbers. For example, the number sentences for the fact family for 6, 7 and 13 are as follows:6 + 7 =13 7+6=13 13-7=6 13-6=7If your student seems reluctant, go slowly. Teach each concept thoroughly and make it as fun as possible. It's okay if your student is dependent on the manipulatives for awhile. Eventually, he will gain confidence and things will start to click.