Number Bonds Revisited: Ways to Teach It

Parents who are new to primary school maths curriculum and attempting to help their child with More Than, Less Than ( 30 is____ more than 12) type of questions would do well to learn and understand the concept behind number bonds or the Part Part Whole concept. This entry would give tips to parents on ways to introduce number bonds to their children. So here goes….

Lesson Plan On Introducing Number Bonds for Numbers to 10

1.0 Objectives

By the end of the lesson, your child should be able to:

• recognize parts and whole of a number bond; and
• manipulate parts to form a whole.

2.0 Getting Started

• Use manipulatives like coloured ice-cream sticks.
  (These can be bought at bookstores and could be used many times for other lessons to come.)
• Take 5 ice-cream sticks and show your child how to group the ice-cream sticks into groups of 2 and 3.
• Get your child to group the ice-cream sticks into various ways e.g. 4 and 1 or 5 and 0 combinations.
• Do the same with varying numbers of sticks from 3 to 10.
• Reinforce to your child that with just one number (choose a number that is more than 1), you can group them into different ways.

3.0 Teaching Points
3.1 Activity 1

• Now, besides the ice-cream sticks, get ready a piece of paper and a pencil.
• Use the same strategy, break up a group of 7 sticks.
• Arrange the sticks as shown below.

• Get your child to count and then write the numbers on a piece of paper.
• Lead him/her to write the numbers the way the sticks are arranged, as shown below and draw a circle around each number:

• Get your child to count out another set of three and four sticks and place them next to the sticks he/she had set out earlier.
• Get him/her to count how many sticks there are in all and then write out the number on paper, in the same way the sticks are arranged.
• In the end, this is what he/she should see:

• Explain to your child that the two smaller numbers are the ‘parts’ that make the big number, that is the ‘whole’.

• Do the same with various numbers and combinations, using the ice-cream sticks to find the answers.

3.2 Activity 2

• Provide practice for your child to do the above before moving on to the next activity.
• In this activity, write down some number bonds.
• Cover the ‘whole’ and get your child to find the answer.
• Praise your child if the answer given is correct.
• Once your child is confident, move on to Activity Three.

3.3 Activity 3

• Write the ‘whole’ of the number bonds and one of the ‘parts’.
• Get your child to fill in the second part.
• Get your child to use the ice – cream sticks to check his/her answers.

4.0Wrap up

• After working on activities two and three, lead your child to see that he/she is actually adding (Activity 2) and subtracting (Activity 3) the numbers.
• Reinforce to your child that when he/she needs to find the ‘whole’, he/she needs to add up the ‘parts’. When he/she needs to find the ‘part’, he/she needs to subtract the ‘part’ from the whole.
• This concept would then be followed –up by the introduction of the Addition and Subtraction topic.

The above excerpts of the lesson plan is taken from the ‘Mom’s Guide to P1 Maths’ published by Interactive Minds.