Shake Those Beans

To help the students understand the concept of addition and subtraction, we have been playing a game called "Shake Those Beans." Each day we practice finding addition sentences for a set sum. The students get a cup of two-color beans that equal that set sum. They then shake the beans and count how many of each color and add them together. Fellow teachers, you could use two-color counters for this as well if you do not want to spray paint beans. They mark their answer on a graph. After each student has rolled their dice a total of ten times, we tally on the board which addition sentence they rolled the most. This is a great probability connection because most of the time, the addition sentences in the middle, such as the doubles, are rolled the most. The students find this fascinating! We follow up this lesson by building the various addition sentences with two different color sets of Unifix cubes. We then practice flipping over the stick to show how addends in a fact family just "flip flop" but the sum stays the same. We then find the related fact family subtraction sentences by taking away parts.