From pictures to numbers
Young children understand addition as putting groups together long before they can work with symbols alone. Picture problems keep that meaning in front of them: two groups to count, then the same problem written as a number sentence. When they count confidently, switch to Numbers only.
Three steps up
- Within 5. Small groups children can see at a glance.
- Within 10. The facts that make ten, the base of later mental maths.
- Within 20. Adding to and taking from teen numbers.
Ready for more? The addition and subtraction worksheets go on to two- and three-digit numbers.
Curriculum links in England
- ReceptionChildren recall number bonds to 5 and some to 10, and understand how each number to 10 is made up.
- Year 1Pupils solve one-step addition and subtraction problems using objects and pictures, including missing number problems.
- SymbolsIn Year 1, number sentences with +, – and = are read, written and interpreted.
English schools often follow a concrete, pictorial, abstract sequence: real objects first, then pictures like these, then numbers alone. The Year 1 statement names pictorial representations directly, so these sheets sit at the middle step.
In Reception, keep to within 5 and within 10 and tell each problem as a short part-whole story: three dogs and two more dogs, five dogs altogether. The take-away pictures with crossed-out items support early subtraction in the same way, and children can act each one out with cubes first.
Summarised in our own words from the EYFS statutory framework (early learning goals) and the National Curriculum in England: mathematics programmes of study (DfE).
