Number Fact "Partners"

I've been working with my 6 year old for a couple of months trying to enable her to recall without thinking number facts to 10 inshallah.....without telling her that is what we are doing! (if she realises we are "doing maths" you can count on a full scale melt-down!!!)

The past couple of days I have found something which alhamdulillah, seems to be working and she is catching on quick!

Using the Montessori addition and subtraction board we started playing a game, in which I ask her to find the partner of a given number which would make the total 10.

So here, you can see I presented the blue number strip "5" and asked "What is the partner of 5?", to which she responded "5" and placed the corresponding partner in red besides to show the total of 10.

To make it appear more like a game, we took in turns to ask one another to find the partner of a given number. Here K presented "8" to me........

........and I responded with "2".

We end up with all the number facts to 10 (excluding 10+0 / 0+10)



I found this to be quite successful alhamdulillah, as it does appear like a game, but in playing this game a few times, the number facts are indirectly learnt and memorised without any effort inshallah, alhamdulillah!

And of course, you can change the total to different numbers to learn various other important number facts such as 5, 20 etc etc etc (although if using number facts beond 10, you'd have to make your own resouces)

It is not at all necessary to have the number board as I have pictured, I just linked it up at the top just for those who are interested.

It is easy to use any other similar material to demonstrate this to the child....unifix cubes would be good.

Alternatively, to use the Montessori equipment but without the price tag, Wikisori have listed free printables to replicate the same materials at home!

Addition / Subtraction strip board can be printed HERE!!!!

The red number strips can be printed HERE!!!!

The blue number strips can be printed HERE!!!!

If you have not checked out http://www.wikisori.org  before, its a brilliant site with free Montessori albums, printable worksheets and equipment replicars.....very useful alhamdulillah.