Addition and subtraction are two of many essential building blocks needed for long term mathematical success. This blog concentrates on effective instructional teaching resources of addition and subtraction for teachers and their first grade students, focusing on recalling basic addition facts with sums up to 18 and their corresponding subtraction facts, as well as helping students create and solve basic picture and world addition and subtraction problems.
Here are some of my personal favorite books dealing with addition and subtraction. These books serve as great anticipatory sets prior to presenting the lesson.
Text Annotations – Books on Adding and Subtracting
Oliver’s Party: Learning Addition and Subtraction with Oliver and His Friends
Written By: Jenny Fry
Illustrated By: Angelina Jolliffe
Summary: Friends join Oliver for his birthday party, and when the party is over, the boys and girls leave one by one, learning to subtract one number at a time. This addition and subtraction book deals with number from 1 – 10, adding from 1 – 10 and then working back from 10 – 1 through subtraction. The illustrations are vivid and bright, helping to capture the attention of students and teachers alike, and numbers are spelled and written on each page.
Written and Illustrated By: Loreen Leedy
Summary: This humor-based book is based on a teacher, Miss Prime, and her students learning the basics of addition. This interactive book encourages student involvement, by taking surveys and investigating mysterious scenarios. Addition problems are comprised of word problems, adding numbers up to 60, and how to check work. The illustrations are will capture and keep students interest, and can be used in sections, from learning to add numbers up to 18 to 60. Above all, this book helps students see the relevance of math and just how much fun math can be.
Candy Counting: Delicious Ways to Add and Subtract
Written By: Lisa McCourt
Illustrated By: Brad Tuckman
Summary: This book takes the cake on snagging student’s attention; no pun intended. Nothing can hook a child’s interest quite like candy; this book focuses on the use of classic candies in order to show addition and subtraction principles. Students learn basic addition and subtraction skills through candy visuals, along with word story problems. Not only are the illustrations bright and life size, this is a great book to use as an introduction prior to an activity working with candy manipulatives.
Written and Illustrated By: Dr. Lynette Long
Summary: This books utilizes dominos as a way to help students begin to understand addition properties. Dominos work great for students who are learning how to add, as they are large, visual, and may have been seen within ‘real world’ situations, like at home. This book works with adding numbers from 1 – 12, and helps reluctatant students see that math can be learned and used like a game. Simple, chic illlustrations that provide a perfect balance of visual stimulation without feeling overwhelmed.
Written By: Melanie Gerth
Illustrated By: Laura Huliska-Beith
Summary: Because subtraction can prove to be more difficult than addition for some students, it is important to find books that solely focus on subtraction methods. This book tells a story about ladybugs disappearing one by one, counting down from 10. Children will visually be able to see how subtraction works through hands on interaction and rhyming text.
Below are some great websites for kids to help build their addition and subtraction knowledge, as well as associate math with being fun!
Web Annotations – Sites for Kids to Practice Addition and Subtraction
Student Activities and Games: Parents Can Play, Too!
Summary: This website not only allows students to select which operation they want to work on, addition or subtraction, but also allows students to opt for games or hands on activities. This is a great website that students and parents can utilize together at home and enhance addition and subtraction knowledge and skills. The website is user friendly and well organized, allowing students to solely focus on what they want to do: have fun with math!
Summary: This is a very basic, beginning game for students who are just beginning to learn about addition. This site contains many games, such as “Adding Bricks,” that give them both a visual number of objects, plus its written numeral, helping to show students connections between the number of objects and adding objects together. Students and parents can return to the homepage of this site and continue to play a variety of addition and subtraction games of all levels.
Summary: This interactive game helps students with subtraction knowledge and understanding. The website as a whole can be used to find a variety of addition and subtraction games, but I opted to link to the site directly to this game to avoid students and parents having to navigate to the addition and subtraction games. This particular subtraction game is excellent because it tests for both accuracy and time efficiency.
Summary: Math Mayhem is an easy to use resource filld with a variety of activities and games for students to utilize while building addition and subtraction knowledge. The website is extremely user friendly; all students have to do is click on the “+” or “-” to begin a series of games focused on that particular operation.
Summary: This website is a great resource for students who possess conceptual knowledge of addition and subtraction and simply need repetitive activities to ensure understanding, accuracy of sums and differences, and time efficiency.
Check out these additional resources for teachers, parents, and students. They are filled with creative lesson plans, games, activities, and other addition and subtraction essentials!:
Additional Resources
Summary: This website is completely dedicated to fun for both students and teachers alike throughout grades and mathematical content areas. Students can access an array of games and puzzles by clicking on any of the options on the homepage, while teachers can find lesson plans and assessment resources on several grades and areas of math; there’s even a place just for parents!
Summary: This website is designed for teachers to incorporate the most effective ways to teach both addition and subtraction to their students. Teachers will be able to access lesson plans, activities, tips, resources, content areas, and even online activities to share with their students.
Student Practice,Teacher Resource
Summary: This website is designed for both students and teachers, includuing comprehensive addition and subtraction lessons and games, providing immediate feedback to the students. The site allows for students to work at their current levels of addition and subtraction in the privacy of their own home, and can help build mathematical confidence. Also, there are some great addition and subtraction tables teachers can manipulate to visually help students learn these tables.