Addition and subtraction within 10 - Addition symbol - Presentation

Lesson 5 of the Fluency & Reasoning Teaching Slides focuses on understanding the addition symbol and its use in creating number sentences. The lesson aims to clarify the concept that adding increases quantity and encourages students to think of synonyms for 'add'. Using visual aids like coloured cubes, students learn to translate concrete examples into number sentences. For instance, combining 4 blue cubes with 2 green cubes illustrates that the sum equals 6 cubes, which is expressed numerically as 4 + 2 = 6. The lesson further explores what each number in the sentence represents and reinforces the meaning of the addition symbol through various activities.

Students are engaged through interactive tasks where they group coloured counters and verbalise number sentences, filling in the blanks to express the total sum, such as "____ red counters plus ____ yellow counters is equal to ____ counters." These activities are designed to help students visualise and articulate the process of addition. They also work with part-whole models to deepen their understanding. The lesson includes reasoning challenges where students determine how different visual representations can complete a given number sentence, and they explore the number of ways to fill in the blanks in an equation using numbers 1 to 10. Independent work encourages students to cut out representations and record their own number sentences, further solidifying their grasp of the addition symbol and its significance in expressing the total of combined quantities.