A is for. . . Adding Up The Steps

A couple of fellow bloggers have decided to start a new round of Blogging Through the Alphabet. I have attempted this before, but I haven't been very successful. This time I have a different idea though. As I was going through old blog posts this past week, I noticed I have some neat ideas for activities and crafts that I did with the older girls when they were younger. Unfortunately, I always included them in my weekly wrap up posts, so they sort of got buried in my archives. I can't really share them as individual activities or create pinnable images to promote them and share my ideas, which is why I started this blog in the first place. So, I am going to make new posts for these ideas.

One of the benefits in doing this is, I am remembering these ideas that I had forgotten, which means I can now do these activities with the younger children. I will be sharing the old pictures and possibly sharing new pictures of the younger children participating.

Several years ago I came up with this neat beginning math activity for the older girls. I called it, "Adding Up the Steps."  

A is for. . .Adding Up The Steps

Here is how it worked:

I wrote one number 1-16 on half a sheet of paper and placed them on the stairs.

Then I made some cards depicting the number we were to add.  +1, +2 and +3 cards.  These were made on 1/4 of a sheet of construction paper.

The girls took turns picking one card.  

I put the equations on the easel.  They both started on 0 of course (the floor) and they had to climb the number of steps shown on the card they picked.  Then they told me what number step they were on.  I then said and finished the equation.

After they both took a turn, I erased the equations, replacing the first numbers with the steps they were now on.

We continued this way all the way up the steps.

They had to draw the exact number to reach 16 because other wise they would have had to climb higher which they obviously couldn't do.

Amelia scooted down the steps, counting backwards as she went.

The numbers remained on the steps for a while.  We played the game several times and when Amelia climbed the stairs she would count, which we did with all the children when they were little. However,  having the numbers on the steps helped her make the connection between the number and the numeral.  They definitely enjoy counting backward on the way down. We never did use them for subtraction, though I had wanted to. I will have to remember to do so with Hannah and Harold.