Most students struggle with math because chances are, their fundamental concepts aren’t clear. This makes the subject either extremely easy or absolutely overwhelming, depending on how quickly your little one understands the basics.
This is why you must ensure that your child’s mathematical foundation is strong, right from the start. Irrespective if your child is a future mathematician or not, learning math is a life skill.
For children in kindergarten, learning math begins from something as simple as addition and subtraction. While it’s isn’t complicated, it certainly can be confusing until you get a hold of it.
So if you’re wondering how to teach addition and subtraction to kindergarten students, we’ve compiled the top 10 easy tricks that you can try to make the subject easy.
1. Countable Manipulatives
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A fun way to teach kids in kindergarten about addition is countable manipulatives. While that may sound complicated, it’s actually fairly simple.
Here, students start learning to count on their fingers before moving to other objects like bottles, blocks, paper cutouts, and more.
2. Make It Visual
Children grasp things faster when there is a visual cue associated with them. Kids in preschool or kindergarten can learn addition and subtraction faster if they can see the objects that they need to count.
For instance, giving a child a pile of buttons or pennies will help them visually understand what 10 pennies or buttons look like. So when they count 4+6, they have a visual reference for the same.
Similarly, in the case of subtraction, when the child needs to deduct 3 out of 10, they have a visual reference of setting aside three pennies from a set of 10.
3. Use A Number Line
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A number line can help a child immensely once they recognise numbers. A number line looks like a dateline and stretches from 1 – 10 or higher depending on your child’s learning level.
You can make a large poster of this at home for your child as an easy reference point.
The number line benefits the child by removing the need to count out the first number in the sum. So, if a child needs to solve a sum of 5+2, they need to count up two places from five on the number line to reach seven.
Similarly, kids will need to count down to 3, in the case of subtraction when the sum is 5-2.
4. Fact Families
These are essentially groups of addition and subtraction facts that include the same number. It’s a handy trick to teach kids once they are familiar with the concept of ‘+’ and ‘-‘ in math.
In fact families, a child learns 5+1, 5+2, 5+3 and so on. Once the child understands that 5+1 = 6, it’s easier for them to grasp how 5+2 equals 7, since the number 2 is more than the number one. While 5 remains constant, it’s the second number that’s a variable and keeps changing.
Another trick associated with fact families is to include doubles. So adding sums like 5+5 or 8+8. Once the child understands that 5+5 equals 10, then 5+4 would equal 9, since the child would then deduct a number from the total sum of 10.
The process will strengthen their mental math ability, but it will only come with lots of practice.
5. Sorting Games
Games are always a fun way to teach kids, sometimes without them even realising it. And sorting games are a great way to get kids acquainted and comfortable with numbers.
Ask your child to create a pile of toys and blocks each. Then ask them to count the number of objects in each pile. You can then ask them to add the two numbers together.
Repeat the same for subtraction where your child needs to subtract the bigger pile from the smaller pile to get the answer.
6. Dice Games
Another fun way to teach kids about and subtraction problems is by using two rolling dice.
Ask them to roll the two dice and then to find the sum of the total rolled.
For instance, once your child rolled a dice that stopped at 5 and the next time they rolled a dice that stopped at 3. You can then write down the sum of the number as 8. When they get the maximum correct answers, they win.
Similarly, in the case of subtraction, both you and your child can roll the dice to 6 and 6, so subtracting both numbers would give you 0.
7. Play With Characters
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If you’re still wondering about how to teach addition and subtraction to kindergarten students, try it with characters. Much like games, stories are a great way to explain concepts to children.
You can tell them a story that goes: there were 2 cats playing in the backyard. One cat picked up 4 apples and the second cat picked up five apples. How many apples did both cats bring home?
8. Play On The Staircase
This is a fun and easy method to teach kids about addition and subtraction. Moreover, it adds a touch of physicality as well, so the child does get a bit of exercise too.
You can draw numbers from 1-20 depending on your child’s learning level and the number of stairs available with each number represented by a stair.
Then you ask the child to stand on a specific number. So, if they are standing on 5 and you ask them to add 3, they need to move to up 8 on the staircase. Similarly, if they are standing on 7 and they need to subtract five from it, then need to walk down to 2.
Kids will enjoy this method as much as you would teaching them.
9. Snack Time = Math Time
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Learning math is a long process and that shouldn’t stop outside the classroom or study hours. Incorporate math in simple things you do, especially with food. Apart from being an extremely visual process, it will also help children grasp the concept of addition and subtraction better.
For instance, if you are serving kids grapes or cookies during snack time, ask them to count the number of grapes or cookies on the plate. You can also make it an addition to subtraction game by asking two kids to add the total number of grapes in their respective plates.
With subtraction, you can ask one child to share their 2 cookies with another child. Then ask them to subtract that many cookies from their plate. Do the same thing with the other child so the first kid can have their cookies back.
10. Play The Math Song
Here’s how to teach addition and subtraction for kindergarten students without taking too much effort: we know that children like to sing along with popular songs so why not use it to teach them math?
You can stream plenty of songs about addition and subtraction online and it will help teach them the concepts.
In order to engage your child even further, you can come up with chants or songs using familiar tunes.
While math will only get more difficult as children move to higher classes, a strong base will help cope up faster with the same. Addition and subtraction will also prepare for the better once multiplication and division have been introduced in their curriculum.
So, here’s our top tricks on how to teach addition and subtraction to kindergarten students. Have fun with numbers and always approach learning with a positive attitude.
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