Subtraction Practice

Also on MoreStarfall, your child can play bowling to help practice subtraction. The students roll the ball and then a subtraction problem appears which helps them visualize taking away objects as a form of subtraction. We play a variation of this game sometimes in class with miniature bowling pins that I picked up in the toy section of Target. The students take turns rolling the ball twice. They count how many pins they knock over on the first roll and add it to however many pins they add on the second roll. You can extend the learning to relate addition and subtraction facts by having the students first count how many bowling pins there are and then subtracting how many they knock over in their fist roll. This can lead to a discussion of fact families.