Teaching Addition in Small Groups

Hi friends! I have Week 5 of my Small Group Number program ready for you to take a peek at! 

You can find the week overview in my downloadable plans. You can easily edit my plans to incorporate different needs for your particular students. 

When I plan 'small groups' I intend them to be an opportunity for students to practice skills they have been learning in whole group lessons. This week's focus is 'addition' - in my whole group time, I would be providing the students with a LOT of opportunities to play with concrete materials and practice addition by combining groups of real-world objects. Games like these ones in my plan, help students to gradually make the leap from concrete to abstract. 

My 'Group 1' students are those that are still working away on being confident with counting and numeral identification. I want them to be introduced to addition, but for small groups, I have picked two activities that also have a focus on counting and numerals. 

The first is called "One More". I just listed it at TpT, and you can grab it for FREE for this week! It includes a 'One Less' game, that will be used in Week 6 - for subtraction. 

Students must roll a die and identify the number. They then have to identify the number that is one MORE than this, and find it on the game board. It can be played in a small group, or as pairs. 


'Bee Number' is the second activity for this group. It is a 'write and wipe' activity and students write the number that comes before and after. I would ask my students to just write the number after, as the focus is on adding one more, and I like to stick to the skill as closely as possible. 


My 2nd group are students that need practice in combining groups to model addition. These students are confident with counting and numbers, but need to see/touch objects to add them - they are not confident with visualising just yet. 

"Two Cheeky" is a game in my Addition Packet. Students roll a die twice and add 'freckles' to their game board kid. They then find the total. I would ask my students to write these numbers down in their maths journal or on a whiteboard - just to keep them focused and on task.


Addition Match gives these students the visual support to add, but will move students a little closer to being able to create a visual in their mind to solve addition. 


My third group of students are confident with combining two groups to model addition. They are ready to start learning to 'count-on'. 

I have chosen 2 games for this group, that have visual support. Egg Flip requires students to flip 2 cards and find the total. Students need to identify the larger number, say the total (without counting) and then count-on the additional number. In the example below, the students would identify 3 instantly and then say "3, 4", counting on the extra 1. If you hear students saying "1, 2, 3, 4" remind them that we say the 'big number' and count-on the small. 


In Addition Pup, they turn a blue card and a green card. They say the number, and count on the dots. 


My fourth group contains students that are more confident with the counting-on strategy, but still require practice. You may still see these students using their fingers for adding, but they start from the 'big number'. The games I have picked still leave visual support (dot patterns on dice) as this is the first time counting-on has been planned in the year, and I would observe the students closely to see how they cope with the games. 

In Giraffe Addition and Busy Beehive, students roll 2 dice and find the total. They count-on from the larger number rolled. If I found that the students were coping with the game very well, I would substitute the dot-dice for numeral-dice, as it would provide less visual support. 



Here is the overview:

and you can download my MS Powerpoint file HERE

Please head over to TpT to grab 'One More One Less' for FREE


Many of the games in these plans are in my 'Addition to 10 Pack 1', also at TpT. I have it on sale for the week!


Thank you so much for stopping by!