Recommended Age: 5 years and onwards (can be younger depending on the child’s skills and experiences)
Purpose: To offer more opportunities for repetition in the memorization of the essential subtraction combinations
Level of Parent Involvement: Medium, the adult must present this exercise to the child, once the child has been shown they may work independently
Prerequisites
- The child must be able to count accurately from 1-10 and onwards
- The child must be able to write numbers
- The child must be able to match the numeral symbol with its quantity of numbers 1-10 and beyond
- The child must have had many experiences doing subtraction with the golden beads
- The child has been introduced to the first, second and third exercises of the subtraction strip board and has practiced working with these materials’ multiple times
Materials
* Subtraction equations
* Pencil
Note; if doing this exercise with your child from home you will be using the paper version of the above materials (see resource pack)
Preparation
- None
Steps
- Invite the child, introducing them to chart 2, the child may bring the chart to the table, you bring the equations
- Show the child how to use the chart, take out an equation for example 9-5
- Read the equation and place your right index finger on the red number (9)
- Place your left index finger on the blue second number in the equation (5)
- Slide your right finger from the red so that it is in line with your left finger
- Slide your left finger across to meet the right, letting the child know where your fingers meet will be the answer (9-5=4) refer to image below
- Invite the child to practice
- Once the child knows the finger movements, invite them to choose an equation, write the equation, do the finger movements and record the answer
- When the child has had sufficient experience, the child may write the equations on blank paper
- At the end child may check their answers with control chart 1
Variations
- None