Teaching math to first graders can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be boring or frustrating. At this age, they are curious and eager to learn.

How to Make 1st Grade Math Engaging and Fun

They just need the right tools and approach to make math fun and engaging. In this blog post, we’ll share some tips and ideas for teaching 1st grade math that will keep your students excited and motivated to learn.

Use Props and Manipulatives

First graders love to touch and play with objects. So, using props and manipulatives in your lessons can be a great way to make math fun and tangible. You could use blocks, cubes, counters, buttons, or any small objects to represent numbers and concepts. For example, you could use blocks to represent addition and subtraction problems. You could use buttons to count and compare quantities. Be creative and encourage your students to explore different ways to use the props. This will stimulate their curiosity and imagination.

Play Math Games

Playing games is an excellent way to make math more enjoyable and interactive. There are many math games that you can play with 1st graders, such as card games, board games, and online games. The key is to make the games age-appropriate, challenging, and rewarding. For example, you could play a card game that involves matching numbers or counting sequences. You could play a board game that involves solving puzzles or answering math questions. You could also find online games that offer visual and auditory feedback and adapt to the student’s level of difficulty. Make sure that the games are relevant to the math concepts you are teaching and that they provide opportunities for your students to practice and improve their math skills.

Incorporate Storytelling

Storytelling is a powerful tool for engaging young students and making abstract concepts more concrete and relatable. You could create stories that involve math problems and challenges that your students have to solve. For example, you could tell a story about a group of animals that need to share apples equally or about a boy who wants to buy a toy with his allowance. You could use pictures, props, or puppets to bring the stories to life and encourage your students to participate and interact with the story. This way, they will learn math naturally and develop their listening, speaking, and critical thinking skills.

Differentiate Instruction

Not all students learn at the same pace or in the same way. Therefore, it’s essential to differentiate your instruction and provide individualized support and feedback. You could group your students according to their learning style, their level of proficiency, or their interests. For example, you could create a station-based approach where each group rotates through different math activities, such as a manipulatives station, a game station, a writing station, and a reading station. This way, each student can learn math in a way that suits their strengths and needs. Make sure that you provide clear instructions, scaffolding, and feedback for each station, so that your students can make progress and feel successful.

Celebrate Achievement

Finally, it’s crucial to celebrate your students’ achievements and progress in math. You could create a math wall where you display their work, their accomplishments, and their goals. You could give them verbal praise, stickers, or certificates for their efforts and successes. You could also involve parents and guardians in the celebration by sending home updates, newsletters, or videos that showcase your students’ math learning and growth. By celebrating achievement, you will not only boost your students’ confidence and motivation but also foster a positive and supportive classroom culture.

Teaching 1st grade math can be a rewarding and enjoyable experience if you use the right tools and approach. By incorporating props and manipulatives, playing games, incorporating storytelling, differentiating instruction, and celebrating achievement, you can make math fun and engaging for your students. Remember to be patient, flexible, and creative, and always have fun while teaching math!

First Grade Math Lesson Plans

At the first grade level, students are expected to move beyond their kindergarten skills to independently reason with numbers. Students learn to add and subtract, identify measurable attributes of 2-D shapes, tell time and use graphs to represent and interpret data.

Build kids’ confidence with this grab-and-go homeschool math curriculum. Workbooks introduce new concepts with a pace that won’t overwhelm first graders.

Addition

In first grade, students begin to memorize addition facts. They also learn to solve word problems involving adding and subtracting, identifying even and odd numbers, and using the number line to help with problem solving. Children also begin to understand place value, and recognize groups of objects as being the same (more than, fewer than or equal to).

Skip counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s is practiced along with recognizing the numbers that come before and after them. In addition to these concepts, children also start to recognize 2-D and 3-D shapes and use the attributes of each shape to identify them in the world around them (number of sides or angles, etc.).

A big focus in 1st grade is on learning number facts with fluency, meaning that the child knows these math facts automatically without having to think about them. This takes time and lots of repetition. Having easy to print addition worksheets is a great way to encourage this process, and Kids’ Academy has a vast collection of printables that are perfect for this purpose.

As your student becomes more proficient in their addition facts, they’ll move on to learning fact families. This is a great way for them to build up their understanding of number sentences, and will give them the confidence they need to move on to more difficult problems.

In addition, they’ll be introduced to more complex addition equations requiring the use of addition within sets and double numbers. This is a challenging concept for new learners, but it’s one that’s crucial to moving forward. It’s important to break these problems down into smaller steps, such as adding 1 + 2, then 2 + 3, and so on.

In terms of other concepts, 1st graders get a chance to practice their measurement skills by drawing graphs and comparing data with other sets of information. For example, they’ll draw a picture graph and a bar graph to show data with up to four categories. They’ll also learn to determine if a group of objects has an odd or even number of members and solve simple put-together, take-apart, and compare problems.

Subtraction

In first grade, students continue to build on their addition skills by learning subtraction. They will begin to memorize subtraction facts, solve word problems, and compare 2-digit numbers to find which is greater. They will also learn about the ones and tens place in a number, as well as determining whether a number is even or odd.

Kids can start by practicing their subtraction math facts using these free printable worksheets. Once they’re ready to move on, these fun subtraction activities and games can help them develop their understanding of this important math concept.

One of the best ways to introduce subtraction is by physically demonstrating it with objects. Kids can use a ten-frame to subtract, or make a 3-D version with a shoebox and Ping-Pong balls. They can also create a game by counting the dots on a set of Uno cards and deciding which card is greater or less than another. This simple activity can be a great way to reinforce the idea that subtraction is all about removing items.

Once children have a good grasp on basic subtraction, they can work on more challenging subtraction math facts and then move on to solving subtraction problems with a missing number. Eventually, they will be ready to learn 2-digit subtraction without borrowing (borrowing is typically introduced in 2nd grade).

When teaching subtraction, it’s important to emphasize that the difference between two numbers is the number that remains after the amount has been taken away. It’s also helpful to remind them that subtracting is the opposite of adding, so removing the same number from a group will leave a remainder. This is called the commutative property and is a key concept to understand as you move on to more complex math topics, such as long division.

Using story problems to teach subtraction is an excellent strategy because it helps kids visualize what they’re doing. One popular way to do this is by using a book such as Five Little Monkeys or Fred the Bunny. Other examples include counting buttons on a shirt or jumping on a bed. By making subtraction relevant to children, they can begin to see its importance in their lives and become confident in their ability to use this concept.

Multiplication

In the early grades, multiplication is a challenging concept to master. Most children are afraid of it because they don’t understand the connection to repeated addition, and it can be difficult for them to memorize the tables. Teaching children the multiplication facts in a strategic order can help alleviate some of these problems. Start with the easier facts, then use them as stepping stones to the more difficult ones. This makes memorization much less intimidating, and it helps children develop a deeper understanding of the concepts.

A great way to start teaching multiplication is by helping children learn about equal groups. A visual representation is helpful, so get some Cuisenaire rods or linking blocks out and ask kids to arrange them into a particular number of rows or columns. This will help them visualize how 3 x 4 can be expressed as a row of four squares each, or as 4 + 4 + 4.

It’s also important to introduce the commutative property of multiplication. This is the fact that multiplying two numbers in any order will yield the same result, a x b = b x a. Children can practice this idea using materials such as cups of beans or grid paper to make sure they understand the concept.

Once students have a solid grasp of multiplication, it’s time to start learning the times tables. Many teachers encourage children to use the easier factors as stepping stones to the harder ones, and then to work up to memorizing all of the tables. This is a much more effective approach than forcing kids to memorize the entire table at once, which often leads to frustration and confusion.

When children are ready to learn the multiplication tables, they should know how to solve a problem before they begin memorization. They should be able to use their knowledge of the commutative and distributive properties to do this, or even to use their calculators to find the answer.

Using word problems is another great way to teach multiplication. Get a set of old Jenga blocks from the thrift store and write multiplication problems on them. Then let kids play. The first player to grab a block and solve the problem keeps it; if they can’t, they have to try again.

Division

Division is one of the four arithmetic operations kids learn in elementary school, but it tends to be the trickiest for them to grasp. In fact, many children have a hard time with this concept for a long time, and it is important for parents and teachers to provide them with the tools they need to succeed. Division worksheets are a great way to help kids improve their skills, while also making the process more fun and engaging.

For younger kids, the first step in learning division is to break a larger number into smaller, equal-sized groups. Then, they can write down the numbers that represent each group and solve for the quotient. It’s best to start with small, single-digit numbers and work up to larger ones. This will give kids a better feel for the whole concept and make it easier for them to understand.

Once students are able to divide a single-digit number into equal groups, it’s time to introduce them to the process of writing down the division symbol and using it in a problem. At this point, it’s a good idea to use manipulatives again, so that students can see the algorithm of division and how it works.

After they have mastered the basics, it’s time to move on to longer division problems. Kids need to be able to recognize the digits of a number, and also be able to identify the divisors and the quotient of a number sentence. This is also a good time to review basic place value and have them practice using their base-ten blocks when writing a division problem.

It’s also important to teach kids how to read a division problem, which starts with the number sentence on the left-hand side and the quotient on the right. This will prepare them for reading and solving more complex division problems when they get to fifth grade.

Finally, it’s a good idea to teach kids the different ways of doing long division, such as the bus stop method and inverse addition. This will prepare them for long division in fifth grade, which is a Common Core State Standard.