My 5 yr old son needs help adding and subtracting , any ideas?

Question

My 5 year has been taught different ways by his teacher to add, including using the fingers, He can do say 2+5 for example on his fingers but when he gets to say 6+1 he gets confused. instead of keeping the six fingers up when he adds the one he, uses those fingers again and gets the answer 5.

I don't know how to help him and enjoy math. can anyone help me please!!

Answer 1

make it fun!  play board games and counting games. count how many plates we need, spoons, cups, sweeties etc!  If you have 5 cookies and eat three, how many are left for me?!

My son is fantastic at numbers for the sole reason is that we play pontoon all the time!  he knows what combination of numbers add up to 21 in a flash!  always teach them when counting to start with the biggest number and keep going when adding.  this is the big secret.  lots of kids start again whenadding.  if you can get them to start with the biggest number and then add the others you will be onto a winner.

just keep going, and keep it fun!

Answer 2

This is fun and easy. Get a roll of pennies. Have your child practice by putting 10 coins in a row and adding and taking away coins to guess and estimate how many are needed to get to a certain number and how many are taken away, how many more are needed, etc.  That way, he can see how many are on the table, you can even group coins into sets and add other sets like 3 pennies and 4 pennies, how many pennies in all? Little games like that work great and he gets to keep the pennies. Have him/ her count out stacks of 5, 10 and 20 pennies each, etc. It's all good.

Answer 3

Try starting with subtraction.  I know it's "backwards" from the way it's normally done, but it is much more intuitive.  Kids "subtract" all the time in every day life.  You have several pieces of candy, you some, you have less.  Instead of trying to do 6+1 on his fingers, try doing 7 - 1.  Once he gets the subtraction down, then start doing

Answer 4

High ho Cherry O is a great game for teaching the math basics.  There is also a race car game that teaches basic math that you can get in the weekly reader from school, keep an eye out for that because my son loves that game. Whatever you do just make it fun and they won't even know they are learning!

Answer 5

Toys, that are all the same, food, candy. Try helping him with M&M's or something, but tell him he can only eat them if he gets the problems right. (gets 5 m&ms if he gets 3 questions in a row right, or whatever you want to do)

Answer 6

Probably most of the answers suggesting using objects are good advice. Maybe when he's a little older, try flashcards, too. Some math (multiplication, especially) seems to be about memorizing it.

Answer 7

i taught math in school ya i know usually boys showed problems in maths,basically they r careless n dont show any interest in maths.i remember 1 of my student he s same like urs son.sometime got me irritate but i never loose my temper,i had told him alot how do add,subtract but he 4got,,then i drawed few pics which he liked them,e.g apple,kites,cars,hens,i draw 5 cars,1 kite then said 5cars+1kite now tell me how many he said teacher 6 now he got it i was so happy but b passions its good rule...same then he done alot sums ,,,,,ya this is true good luck try 2 give love n with passions do it

Answer 8

Your child is only five years old.  

What he needs more than anything is time for his brain to mature and develop the ability to think abstractly.

I would suggest you relax over the summer and allow him to have some fun.

Answer 9

use goldfish cracker, skittles, m-n-ms, and those sorts of things.  Boys tend to be more visual people.  Another thing you may want to try is Leap Frog makes great videos for this kind of thing.  Try to break him of the finger thing. My mom never did and i still catch myself doing that. Also flash cards are great. You can never go wrong with repetition.

Answer 10

I might try using more concrete examples and show him how counting is related to adding.  You can use anything - crackers, grapes, blocks, whatever!  Add everything at home, the number of pencils plus the number of crayons.  Then take away the black crayons.

I might suggest staying away from fingers and encourage him to memorize the facts.  As his math gets more advanced, he won't be able to use his fingers.  I've seen a lot of kids too reliant on their fingers.

Answer 11

Smarties!

Answer 12

Use pennies, nickels, etc., or any other object, like raisins or beans.  This is a good way to help him visualize what's going on with addition, and will help again when he has to learn multiplication and division.

Answer 13

Use legos....thats what I did with my kids!