Teaching Subtraction The Common Core Way

Kindergarten teachers have an advantage when it comes to the new Common Core because we have been doing the mile deep, hands-on, internalized learning forever.  Right?

I have been teaching subtraction with manipulative materials over the past few weeks.  Each week, I like to bring out a new set of fun manipulative items to subtract with.  I found these mini popcorn holders on clearance at a party shop and wondered how I could make popcorn for each cup and then subtract with it.

  I was going to buy the plastic strings of popcorn garland used for Christmas trees and cut it apart, but I couldn't wait another year, so I cut up pieces of styrofoam "popcorn" used as packing material, touched them up with a little yellow highlighter, and placed ten pieces in each cup.  I made some extras just in case.  :)

Then, I found this large popcorn holder at the 99 Cent Store to keep my set of popcorn cups in.

When I pass out the popcorn cups, we will discover all of the ways we can from ten.  I use the worksheet from our "Jeweled Math" set to help us set up each subtraction problem.  So if we start with 10-10= _____, we all count ten pieces of popcorn onto the table and then take ten away and put it in our popcorn cup.  When we discover that it leaves zero pieces left, we record that on the worksheet and read the number sentence 10-10=0.  We continue with the next one, 10 - 9 = _____.  We act it out with our popcorn and record our findings on the worksheet.

You can find our jeweled math set here.

Jeweled math is meant to be used with plastic jewels and our crown template, but I use something different every week.  You can find our crown template here.

You can also color the jewels on the crown with colored pencils, cross out the number of jewels to be subtracted, and count the jewels that are left.

Enjoy, and remember to "Keep the FUN in the FUNdamentals."