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Addition and Subtraction Activities
** New** Number Bond Activity

Math Games

Looking for a gift idea for students? All you need is a deck of cards and some game activities. Click on the picture below for the download.

War (Grades K-1)
This classic game helps students recognize relative values of numbers. Players split a deck of cards and simultaneously flip over their top cards. The highest-value card wins the pair. If the cards have the same value, players deal an additional three cards face down and then place the fourth card face up. The card with the highest value wins all the cards from the round, including the face-down cards.

Make 10 (Grades K-2)
Remove the face cards from a deck. Deal 12 cards face up. Players take turns finding and removing combinations of cards that add up to 10. When both the players agree that no more tens are possible, more cards are dealt. This game helps students recognize parts of 10, an important step in learning to add and subtract base 10 numbers.

Missing addend "mind reading" (Grades 1-3)
In this game for three players, one student is the leader and the other two are the players. The two players each draw a card and, without looking at it, hold it up to their foreheads so that everyone else can see it. The leader announces the sum of the two cards. Each player must figure out which card is on his or her own forehead. When both players have figured out their cards, a new leader is chosen and the game continues. Try playing this game with four or five players for a challenge!

Pig (addition)
Players take turns rolling two dice. A player may roll the dice as many times as he/she wants, mentally keeping a total of the sums that come up. When the player stops rolling, he/she records the total, and adds it to the scores from previous rounds. BUT if a one is rolled, the player scores a 0 for that round, and it's the next player's turn.

Number Family Rummy (fact families)
Use a deck of 40 cards: Four suits of ace through ten. The goal is to make families of three cards that are related by addition or subtraction. For example: 5, 5, and 10 are a family because 5+5=10, and 10-5=5. 6, 3, and 9 are a family because 6+3=9, 9-6=3, and 9-3=6.
Shuffle the deck and deal 6 cards to each player. Place the remaining cards face down in a pile. If you have any families of cards, place them aside. If you don't have any families, you may draw one from the pile and discard one of your own. You may also discard the one that you picked up, if you don't want it. The first player to get rid of all 6 cards (2 fact families) is the winner. Remember that the ace equals one.

Subtraction Pig (subtraction)
Two or more players start out with 100 points each. Players in turn roll two dice and subtract that number from their points. A player on a turn continues rolling the dice and subtracting the resulting number from his remaining points until a 1 appears on any dice rolled. That player's turn ends, and the next player takes a turn. When a player has lost all of his points, he is out of the game. The last player in the game, is the winner.

Facts

Fact Family Activity: You will need 2 dice. Students make a triangle and write the two numbers they rolled in the bottom corners of the triangle. They add the two numbers together to get the other part of the "family" and write it at the top of the triangle. Then, they draw a rectangle beneath the triangle to create a house. These numbers are called the "Fact Family." Big Daddy is the biggest number, Mama is the next biggest number, and baby is the smallest number.

Make number cards, plus, minus and equals cards. I then call up students to hold these and have them form the 4 problems in each fact family. Have a student record each number sentence on the whiteboard.

Have several different fact families written on sentence strips. (one fact per sentence strip.) Then have the students walk around and find the other people in their 'family'.

A helpful phrase to help students create fact families: “no crazy cousins” to show that you can't have a problem with a different number in a fact family.

Looking for an activity to get your students thinking about math facts? Well then check out Guess My Number Puzzles available at the Teaching Oasis. ($3)