Max Maths, Year 1, Learn together, Number sentence families

In the Max Maths programme for Year 1, students are introduced to the concept of 'Number Sentence Families' through an engaging activity involving flowers. This activity helps children understand the relationship between addition and subtraction and how numbers can be combined in different ways to create a family of related number sentences.

The children are first asked to identify the quantity of yellow flowers, which is found by solving the subtraction sentence '8 − 5 = 3'. This indicates that there are three yellow flowers. Next, they determine the number of pink flowers by solving another subtraction sentence '8 − 3 = 5', resulting in five pink flowers. To find out the total number of flowers, students can use addition, either '5 + 3 = 8' or '3 + 5 = 8', both of which confirm that there are eight flowers altogether. The lesson emphasizes that these number sentences are interconnected and form a family, showing that subtraction can be used to find a missing addend and that the order of addends in addition does not affect the sum. This foundational concept is a building block for understanding the properties of numbers and operations.