The Number Bus

William has started learning more about subtraction and addition the last two weeks as part of his home schooling.

Addition to 10 and number bonds are fairly straight forward,  or at least for William they have been, where he has been looking at the number,  following patterns and matching pairs. This comes along side the previous knowledge of counting to ten and counting on from a number up to ten.

As a teacher I would hope that children that enter into year 1 would have this knowledge or at least have some knowledge to be able to build upon to this point.

However, this being said, converting your understanding when applying it to a simple sum i.e "4+3=" becomes much harder. You are taking each number as an individual and expecting the child to count on the amount of the second individual number. So, I hope if you've followed the last section,  you can see how a simple sum can then become a more complicated subject for a young child of 5 or 6.

This then becomes more complex when you start subtraction. You are now asking a child to count backwards from 10 and subsequently counting back from an individual number with another individual number to complete a sum. These are difficult if they are not part of a memorable number bond pattern.

So what can you do to help your child to understand both addition and subtraction?

A common and useful technique is the number bus.

This technique requires the child to have an understanding of how a bus works and that's it. People get on and off a bus. You can add another person on take away another. Each person subsequently relates to one number when put in numerical order.

When a child comes a cross a sum I.e "7+2=" they would then place 7 people on the bus, and the bus would then pick up and add 2 new people. Whilst the child is concentrating on numbers and numerical orders they are now also considering the term of adding to a previously known individual number. 

The same principle works for subtraction. One number is set for the bus passengers. The next individual number is how many you take away from the bus, as they 'get off'. Again, the child in this scenario looks at individual numbers as well as learning subtraction techniques along the way.

This practice is seen, from the child's point of view, as a fun activity, of which in this form is playing rather than just doing boring Math. 

William thrived with this. He loved every aspect of it, whilst calculating each sum, you can also hear him having conversation with each bus passenger. His arithmetic work is being completed and he isn't bored trying to count on or back, well at least not in his previous understanding of it, yet his understanding of subtraction being 'taking away' and addition being 'adding a individual number' had flourished quite quickly.

So if you're child is having difficulty with understanding these two concepts I would suggest you try the number bus. You can get a copy of the bus template from www.communication4all.co.uk