I don’t typically post math printables, but I wanted to share a dice game I made for ALuv (currently almost 7 years old) to review fact families and work in some more dice games (since this seemed to be our theme last week).
I’m not a math guru, so I don’t know all the official terms for why fact families are important to teach. But basically, fact families help students to see how addition and subtraction are related to one another. (For example: If 6+4=10, then 4+6=10. Furthermore, if 10-6=4, then 10-4=6.)
Update: This fact family dice game has been updated! It now includes new game boards for addition, subtraction, multiplication AND division…in color AND in black/white! Woohoo!
{Download these FREE Fact Family Triangles HERE.}
More Math Ideas You May Enjoy:
- Learning to Add and Subtract
- Double Digit Addition with Dominoes
- Find Low Prep Math Games in our Print & Play Series
- Exploring and Creating Patterns
- Pattern Block Read, Build and Write Mats
- Word Bump! Spelling Games {integrates addition with dice}
~Becky
Thanks for this maths game. I’m going to try it with my boys as we are working on maths facts at the moment.
If you’d like another maths dice game, this is one we enjoy playing …http://storiesandchildren.com/the-maths-squares-game/
Again, thanks heaps for your time in sharing your Fact Family Triangle.
This reminds me of a literacy game from Annie Moffatt. LOVE IT. I pinned it to my math board. 😉
I like that you put the page in a page protector so you could use it again and again! Great idea!
Tonya
Thanks!
One reason that these kind of activities are important is that they help students think about math in different ways (i.e., instead of thinking 5+5=10, they think 4+6=10, 3+7=10, -1+11=10, etc.), which in turn makes math more interesting. This research is related: http://www.calstatela.edu/centers/learnlab/The_Learning_Lab,_CSU_Los_Angeles/research/Entries/2009/9/22_Structure_in_Elementary_Mathematics.html
Thanks so much. I am planning to do a mix of Singapore Math and Math Mammoth for 1st grade. SM uses fact families a lot, but they call it number bonds and they go into number bonds in different ways down the road as kids work with larger numbers with more digits. It helps a lot with mental math, decomposing numbers to do figure out larger math problems in your head. I figure if I teach my dd the addition facts, then also teach her fact families, then we won’t be spending much time on subtraction (at least for first grade.) I see this also as tying in with algebraic thinking because they are learning blank + 2 = 4, etc. I am not a math guru either, took minimal math in college, but my dd loves math and science and I am dedicated to helping her and actually having fun along the way!
Yes. I love how math concepts are so interrelated.
… Commutativity isn’t just a property of an operation alone. It’s actually a property of an operation over a particular set. For example, when we say addition is … <> I taught special education at high school level and hated these words until one day, a student had m&m’s and I had a light go off. CoM&Mutative = no matter what order you ate the m&m’s, you ate them all!! All my students loved it and remember to this day, including me. Your families are teaching Commutative Properties.. Big word but easy to remember with M&M’S. (+, -) and (x, division) are commutative property families.
Thank you for the education lesson. Now, I need to go get some M&Ms. 😉