Addition {in a kindergarten classroom}

Hey there!  I’m stopping in to share with you…an all about addition post and a freebie!  We have been rockin’ and rollin’ with our addition practice!  This year we started with combining simple sets using mental math and then concrete objects.  After this we went on to adding with the addition sign!
Before starting in our addition unit I introduced addition in disguise to the kiddos.  We added a word problem to our daily number sense routines and the kids ate it up.  It looked/sounded something like this….
Boys and girls close your eyes and think about this…I have 3 dogs and 2 cats.  I then put down cubes to match my story…. 3 “dogs” and 2 “cats.  The students then worked with their partners to talk about what they saw.  I then called on one set of kiddos to explain.  One partner also went over to the whiteboard and wrote out the problem….

3 dogs and 2 cats makes 5 pets.
I emphasized that they use of nouns to describe each number within the problem.  We’ve continued these carpet word problems as we’ve progressed through our addition unit.  The kids transitioned seamlessly into stating their own word problems to their partners  and recording the problem on their whiteboards.  
I have 2 cows and 4 ducks….how many animals do I have?

We also took it to paper with my addition word problems sheets!  The sheets seen below are my my assisted picture packet, but I have lots to choose from 😉

Okay, backing up a little…. after I introduced combining sets with word problems we moved into seeing parts of numbers!  In the activity below  each partner set had 1 ten stick.  One partner would break the stick into two parts and the other partner would then write the two sets and the sum.

We also worked on fact families to 10!  With this activity I set up a little powerpoint for the whiteboard.  You can see it below {sorry for the crummy picture}.  Anyway, the ten frame started with 10 yellow circles..I then replaced a yellow circle with one red circle. 

We then charted our fact families on chart paper.  The colored lines came as a final lesson!   After we discussed the fact families to 10 ….I also quickly showed the students how no matter the order of the addends, the sum is the same!  

Counting on is another one of those skills they HAVE or the struggle….I got one…bless his heart.  He always seems to count backwards so subtraction should be a breeze 😉  I have these HUGE blow up dice that we used for counting on.  Not sure why I don’t have my own picture, but it was the best.thing.ever. {for the kids—teacher anxiety for me}.  I would call out a number and pass the die to a student who would count on however many it landed on.  So,  I call our 3.  They get a 4 and say, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7….for counting on at this stage I do model using my fingers.

We followed up with these counting on practice sheets….

Addition is hard work 😉  So, we tried to save a snippet of time each day to play Critter Junction!  It’s great for the computer or whiteboard…you can below to play!

You can click below for a previous addition post for more resources and ideas!

Have a great week!