Want to jazz up your 2nd grade math class? Here are suggestions for addition and subtraction books, kid’s websites and additional resources. This blog covers addition and subtraction fact families to 20, finding sums, differences, solving one and two step problems and showing their inverse relationship.
Amazing Math Books!
The Grapes of Math by Greg Tang, illustrated by Harry Briggs
With clever riddles, your students will become clever math whizzes. Illustrated riddles introduce strategies for solving a variety of addition and subtraction problems in using visual clues. The answers to the riddles are in the back of the book.
George Washington’s Teeth by Deborah Chandra and Madeleine Comora, illustrated by Brock Cole
A rollicking rhyme portrays George Washington’s lifelong struggle with bad teeth. A timeline taken from diary entries and other nonfiction sources follows. Students can work on subtraction while learning about hygiene and history.
Shark Swimathon by Stuart J. Murphy, illustrated by Lynne Cravath
Swimming subtraction is just a part of the fun when these sharks need to swim 75 laps by the end of the week to make it to the state swim camp. Besides straight subtraction problems, they need to work together to meet their goal.
Math Fables Too by Greg Tang, illustrated by Taia Morley
While learning about animals and their habits, work on math fact families up to 10. Greg Tang describes the animals’ activities while showing addition facts. He includes descriptions of sea horses, koalas, dolphins, chimpanzees and more!
Hippos Go Berserk! by Sandra Boynton
A hilarious portrayal of what happens when hippos get together for a party. It is a good presentation of addition and subtraction relationships.
Exciting websites for kids!
Ten Frame:
Students play a game with a ten frame and chips where they can choose to play “How many?” “Build,” “Fill,” “Add,” and “Play All.” These games work on sums, differences, and recognizing numbers.
Math Curse Hidden Picture Game:
Everyone loves the book, Math Curse. Students practice their addition and subtraction skills while trying to correctly answer the questions to reveal the hidden picture.
Two Player Math Adding:
Students play against each other while adding single and double digit sums. A crazy looking mathematician narrates and scores are kept.
Ghost Blasters:
Students try to blast away ghosts while practicing sums up to 50. You can change the sum which with they try to blast the ghost. Great sound effects and animation.
Can you balance?
Virtual Unifix cubes sit on scale waiting to be balanced. Students pick from the possible answers to add the correct amount to the unbalanced tray. They can work on seeing what addend pairs equal the same sums.
Additional Teacher Resources:
Face Off!
Great addition practice for students to play together using manupulatives. Downloadable directions and material templates included. Good game for a math center or to use during a lesson.
Need virtual manipulatives for your class room computers?
Download the Base Blocks, Base Block Addition, Base Block Subtraction, Diffy, and Number Line Arithmetic. They are interactive and presented clearly.
More literature and lesson plan ideas!
Look at the suggestions for the books Ten Apples up on Top by Theo LeSieg and Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews. Work on Ten Frames and Part-Part-Total. It’s practice for forming numbers and math sentences.
Runaway Math Puzzle!
Use this template to make your own cool math puzzle. It is set up like a crossword puzzle, but with addition or subtraction sentences. The templates are midway down the page.
