Addition - A Really 'wow' Starter

[Guest]

Hi all,

 

I hope I have posted this is the right place - I'm new to the forum but think it's fab!

 

Wondered if any of you lovely people had a really 'wow' idea for an observation.

 

My topic is Dinosaurs, and my lesson is on addition. My group activity will be using the small world dinos and tray to do some practical addition, moving the dinos across the river one by one and having a go at doing the number sentences practically and then having go at writing them.

 

In my other areas I have another focus activity with TA - making dino skeletons wth art straws (estimating length, vocab longer, shorter etc), outdoor I have the skittles and dominoes, and finding two numbered dino footprints and add together for my more able.

 

I'm after a really good starter, ready to capture imagination and get the children really enthusiastic. Does anyone have any ideas? We have a 'Numbersaurus' on or display, who we help solve problem everyday, ie, adding the eggs in two nests, helping him fill in a missing number on his spines etc.

 

Would really appreciate a fab starter if anyone has an idea xx

[Guest]

Hi I use a puppet quite a lot for my oral starter, we have a number line-20 hung up and my puppet Sid swaps around the numbers, hides them, puts them upside down etc before school and the children love trying to work out what needs to be done to return the number line to normal. Also Sid is learning to add and subtract and he sometimes says the number sentences wrong so the children have to correct him if he makes a mistake.

 

When i teach addition and subtraction I have the children making big actions in the air to go with the number sentence using arms to make a cross for + and 2 forearms parallel for = while saying the number sentence. I had an observation recently and they loved this (active learning etc!)

 

Deb