Fact families are a hard thing for some children to wrap their brains around. JDaniel and I recently put together some kids math activities that work on fact families. Yes, he helped me put them together. Part of having him understand tools we would need to do the activities was to help create them. I have made many activities and learning tools for him. He has helped make a number of them too. The ones that he has helped to make he was the most excited about.
“Let’s start with 1+9. Pick a star in one color and then select nine stars of another color. Then we will thread them onto a pipe cleaner. The single color goes first and then the nine other stars.” I said continuing to explain the activity.
Then I pulled out a large piece of construction paper with number sentences on the front and back. We started with the number facts on the front. I had JDaniel arrange the number fact pipe cleaners above the number fact that they displayed. We counted the beads on each pipe cleaner to make sure that they really did match. ( I think it is important for kid math activities to use various learning styles. This one uses oral written communication and hands on learning.)
When we had worked on the front of the paper, I turned the paper over to the back. The number sentences on the back were the ones from the front turned around. Instead of 1+9 the fact 9+1 was displayed. We talked about how we could turn the pipe cleaner display of 1+9 to get 9+1. The use of a visual display really helped him get it.
JDaniel decided we need to work parallel on number facts together to extend the activity. We both took turns writing number fact sentences on index cards. JDaniel took some pictures of me, but I decided they weren’t going to go in the post. I will share those lovely pictures on Facebook instead.
How else can you use these pipe cleaner number sentences?
- The beads slide up and down the pipe cleaner and counted.
- The pipe cleaner sentences are arranged with even numbers on the red pipe cleaners and the odd numbers on beige pipe cleaners. You can talk about how even number plus even numbers equal even numbers and odd numbers plus odd numbers equal even numbers. That is so cool!
Such a cute idea. I find that Nathan learns best when it’s hands on.
I love using beads and pipecleaners for learning. In the past we have used them to learn to count and for number recognition. I made a number mat and had Tabitha sort the colors of the beads onto 1 of 5 pipe cleaners. In other words their was 1 of 1 color, 2 of another, 3 of a different color, etc so they were all sorted on the pipecleaners that were stuck into a cheese shaker. When she was finished sorting them she was to match them to the number mat for numeral recognition. And now that I am thinking of this I need to do it again for the younger children. And you activity will be a great extension of that for the older children.
I love how visual this is for showing addition. I agree the having him help you build them would reinforce the concept even more!
I haven’t heard the fact family term before. We do a lot of math worksheets at home because the math at school is below Pierce’s level. They decided not to send him up to 2nd grade for math because he would’ve missed some important things in his class. So I just supplement at home. He’d probably had more fun if I did hands on like this.
I think this is a fun way to teach number sentences. I love the projects you’re always doing for learning, but I love the amount of time they allow you to spend with your little one too. Very cool. 🙂
This is such a fun idea and even though Aarya doesn’t like threading, i am sure he will enjoy something like this 🙂
Ah brilliant! You’re always a star 🙂 Thank you for sharing.
Have a lovely weekend.
Melody xoxo
My daughter loves stars! I think and hope that I’ll relearn a lot about math through my children. I’m a bit rusty. It’s been since high school!
What a wonderful activity! He looks like such a big helper getting it all set up.
What a great learning tool – really like how simple it is too put together too.
I love this hands-on math. My sons learns by doing, so this is a GREAT way to practice addition skills. Thanks for sharing at the After School Linky Party!
My son starts kindergarten in the fall so I have been collecting activities that we can do at home to help him out with what he is learning in school. This looks like something great that could be added to that list. 🙂
Stopping by from #SITSBlogging.