Number bonds to ten and twenty are an important thing for infants to understand and learn. Practise, practise and more practise is the key to ensuring that children are able to remember them so that the answers just come instinctively, but worksheets and endless sums are boring and offputting.
We've recently discovered the wonders of Elmer and I thought it would be great to create our own colourful elephant using a key and sums with answers between 10 and 20.
The Elmer Addition & Subtraction sheet features both addition and subtraction sums as it is important for children to recognise that one is the inverse of the other and that they are linked together. Subtraction can be a bit tricky for young children, but counting back and finding the difference is a vital step in their mathematical development. Use counters to help young children see the answers, before the age of around seven years children have difficulty seeing the abstract sum and often need to associate one counter with one number.
The Elmer Addition & Subtraction sheet is available to download here.
An easier version of this Elmer maths colouring activity, which involves rolling a dice and colouring the squares using the key, is available on page 6 of this downloadable PDF.
OOh I love this idea! Now to get the printer working (6yr old loves elephants and maths – so this is the ideal combo!) x
Thank you! The Boy really enjoyed it, although some were a bit tricky for him. A challenge is always good though!
This is a great idea! A bit like colour by numbers!
Yep, but you have to work out what the numbers are to colour!
What a lovely idea, we love elmer 🙂
Wow!! Great idea.
This looks super useful; one of Harry's themes for this term is Elmer!
Just came across this. Fantastic idea. I'm going to print one out for son2. Thank you