Addition Fun

I am very into hands on learning, especially for math.   When teaching addition, I think it is so important to use counters and other manipulatives to solve addition problems, making it concrete learning.  I teach ELL students and I am very into sentence frames so we learned "___ and ___ is _____"   

We picked cards from the pocket chart, represented those numbers using felt shapes and solved the addition problem.   The number cards that we use also have pictures so we were able to check our answer by counting objects on our cards and using our fingers. 
We continued using our sentence frame and learned to represent the numbers by drawing pictures.  I had students pick a handful of cubes.  They made a tower with those cubes and then broke their tower apart leaving some cubes in their left hand and some cubes in their right hand.  Students then traced their hands and the cubes and wrote their sentence frame to match. 

Almost every student came up with a different number sentence and I was so pleased with how it turned out.

We used our monkey math manipulates to practice putting numbers together.  I have used this for years and it is always a favorite by my students.  It is really a balance...  Students pick two sets of bananas, the group of bananas show that amount of bananas and the number.  

They students count how many all together and balance that number on the other side.  

 It is like magic for my students!!!  I purchased this Monkey Math at Lakeshore but I was able to find a link on Amazon.  You can check it out below. 

Monkey Math 

Once students had a grasp on putting groups together, I introduced the addition symbol.  I LOVE this video from Harry's Kindergarten to teach the addition symbol

We starting using pictures to solve addition problems.  I LOVE exit tickets and checking for understanding after each lesson so I am able to know if I can move on.  

  
We made an anchor chart explaining the concept of addition.  I love keeping anchor charts up while teaching the concept and referring during lessons as a visual for students and to reinforce our learning. 

Students practiced using the addition symbol using counters and tens frames.  

The equations that we used were color coded so we used double sided counters and students put that many of each color on the tens frame to solve the equation.   You can grab this freebie by clicking on the link below:

Tens Frame Addition Equations

We did another addition check for understanding, this time the students have to solve an addition problem without any support.  These were so helpful because I was able to quickly scan through them and pull a group that I would have to support more.  

 

We then solved paper and pencil addition problem and the students were so successful.  We used these mini books with only one problem per page, allowing them to focus on that one problem without getting overwhelmed. The students drew pictures under each number and cut and paste the answer to solve each problem.

These addition mini books are available in my TPT store which you can check out by clicking on the image below. There are several mini books included in the packet including using tens frames, pictures, number lines, tallies and creating number sentences to match pictures. 

You can also check out the exit tickets that I used by clicking on the image below... They are bundled with other OA standards in this packet.  They have been so helpful to guide instruction in my classroom.

 
Once my students really understood addition, as a center activity, we used dice with dice inside (which my studnets LOVE)  to practice addition.  

The recording sheet is a freebie from Kim Dominak's TPT store, which you can find my clicking on the link below. 

Differentiated Dice Printable

   

I hope that you find some new ideas that you are able to start using in your classroom!!