Activities to teach "one more" and "one less"?

[HauntyMython]

Had DD's first parents evening, she's been in reception for 6 weeks. Her teacher said she's impressed with the accuracy of her counting groups of objects (I'm assuming she means DD has mastered 'one to one correspondence' though she didn't use the jargon :o) and the next step is to practice 'one more' and 'one less'.

So apart from just getting some objects and saying "how many do we have if we take one away" etc, anyone got any fun ideas? She can do 'one more' but we haven't really tried 'one less' yet.

Thanks :)

Sorry 'teach' was probably the wrong word, I'm not going to sit her down and fire instructions at her, I guess I'd like something fun so she can experiment herself with a bit of guidance IYSWIM?

By eating a line of smarties one by one.

She'll work really hard on that, trust me.

There are lots of counting songs that do one less -

Five Little Speckled Frogs
Five Little Men in a Flying Saucer
Five little Ducks
Five Currant Buns in a Baker's Shop
Ten Green Bottles

Use fingers to illustrate, can be done anywhere!

Smarties.
jelly tots
Jelly babies
Chocolate buttons

Sorted.

One fewer. Not one less. [pedant]

We've been doing simple addition and subtraction with DD who is also in reception. We lots of the songs Humphrey mentioned and we have a number line on her bedroom wall. Mostly though we just make up simple word puzzles for her. She gets to the correct answer much more quickly if given a descriptive puzzle e.g. "If you have 5 apples and Daddy eats one then Mummy eats another one, how many apples have you got left" than if it was "what is five take away one take away one". Gradually with practice she is 'getting' the idea and we have started to introduce simple sums written down e.g. 5-1-1=? which she reads out to us, then works out the answer (usually on her fingers)

definately with food. count out pieces of pasta/grapes/raisins/smarties for and "one more is" then eat them one at a time for "and one fewer less is"

also counting up and down stairs/steps.

Ooh thanks for the heads up about one fewer, I didn't know that despite being pedantic in many ways :)

Great suggestions, will be doing some games soon. We will be making a shop this week - making little price labels and counting out pennies - so will try to incorporate real food.

By which I mean smarties. :o

The less / fewer thing drives me crazy. I spent a week of my teacher training in a class doing "one more and one less" and "ten more and ten less" - I wanted to scream!

Sigh. This was reception dc's homework last week. The 'less' make me weep quietly inside.

Try the difference between your child's age and that of sibling or friend. My dd looks like she's losing the will to live if I ask her 'what's 1 more/fewer than x?' but will happily do it if we're talking about difference in ages between her and her brother.

Hi HauntyMython:

Lots of great suggestions with food already. I'd also add that board games can really help with one more or less and beyond.

Snakes and ladders is brilliant for this. Play as normal for addition (+1 - +6) and play backwards for subtraction (-1 to -6). As time goes on and your DD has matered up to 6, you can try adding a second die so you are adding up to 12 or subtracting up to 12.

Another idea is to get yourself 10 shells or buttons and have you DD play games making the number bonds for numbers between 2 and 10. This is really useful for pattern recognition. What are the ways to make 5? 1 + 4 raisins, 2 + 3 raisins, 3 + 2 raisins, and 4 + 1 raisin. She shows you with objects and you write it down. Once she's mastered bonds to 10 you can expand to 20, after that she should recognise the patterns for larger numbers.