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.
CAPS links
- Grade RSolves story sums told aloud, with answers up to 10, using counters and other concrete apparatus.
- Grade 1Moves from apparatus and pictures to number sentences, adding to 20 and taking away from 20.
CAPS describes a steady move from concrete apparatus to number symbols and number sentences, and it wants the pictures children draw to carry numbers and a number sentence too. Each problem on these sheets has both, so children see the same story two ways.
In Grade 1, CAPS also teaches that every addition number sentence has a matching subtraction one. After an addition sheet, ask children to say the take-away sentence that goes with one of the problems.
Summarised in our own words from the DBE’s Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) for Mathematics, Foundation Phase (2011).
