Addition and Subtraction Mats
Happy December Excellent Educators! You’ve almost made it to the halfway mark…woohoo! I’m sure you are preparing to wrap up your semester as you teach any remaining content and bring last minute things to a close. This month I have an activity to share with you, that I that I think you can get good use out of the last few weeks in December and even revisit when you return from break – my cold weather addition and subtraction mats!
These mats are a simple no-prep way to teach addition and subtraction through storytelling. All you will need are these printable mats, buttons and two dice! (You should have plenty of buttons if you have been playing my Pete the Cat ten frame game – Count and Compare!) 😉
I used these mats during my math small group for both addition and subtraction. I gave each student a mat and I used the dice tell a story and act it out on their coat.
See the video below for details.
After modeling this a few times, I would pick a student to tell a story using the dice and the rest of the students at the small group would act it out.
As an extension to this lesson, have students write the number sentence to go along with the story. You can also compare the final number of buttons after each child’s story to see which number story had the most buttons or the least.
Use these mats for subtraction too! The only modification I did was to create my own dice since the probability of the dice could produce two numbers that couldn’t be subtracted (like the numbers 1 and 6). You can also do the same extension activities for subtraction as you did for addition!
See the video below for details.
If you do not have buttons or if you want to change it up, you can even have students make their own “buttons” using play dough. There are countless other ways to use these coats. Download them today and explore the many ways you can make them work for you!
Download Addition and Subtraction Mats
Happy Teaching!
P.S. Here’s a matrix for all my Georgia Pre-K teacher friends!
Very Creative. Love the video. Very clean, and understandable. Keep marching towards greatness . The legions are following you.
B
Thanks Bruce! I’m just trying to produce everything in excellence!
Materials, video on how to use AND a matrix to top it off. You just can’t get better than that!!
Yes ma’am Ms. Gloria! I do it because that’s what hardworking teachers like you deserve!