What's best way to teach number bonds of 10?

[MaggieW]

DS, Y1, is struggling with numeracy so his teacher says he really needs to have number bonds of 10 off pat. What's the best way to teach them to him and help reinforce what he's being taught? Any simple games or activities to suggest?

My ds needs to learn these too, so will watch with interest.

I practised them with dd by making finger puppets (I cut the corners off envelopes & wrote the numbers on & a face) & we played pairing games with them.

a pairs game. You write all the numbers from 1 to 10 on cards and turn them over. Then turn the cards face up one at a time and try to find the "pair".

Take the picture cards and 10s from a pack of cards and play Snap! with the rest. Obviously snapping on number bonds not matches though.

This game is good too - you can set the number to whatever you want The 'For evaluation only' gets in the way a bit- but you can buy the disc or a download This is the main site.

I think once they have the jist of what number bonds are - which you could do with colouring in squared paper for example - you just need to practise over and over. We do sums walking to school and also used to do them going up the stairs - I sit at the top and call out sums if they get it right they go up a step, if wrong down a step. So for number bonds you would call out 6 and they would say 4 if you were doing to 10 or you could say 6+4 and they would say 10, or simple subtraction. I think you just need to keep doing it for a few minutes every day.

I've clipped pegs onto a coat hanger and then split them so that 8 are on one side, 2 on the other and so on. Then you can progress to covering one side with a tea towel and getting them to guess.

You could also get some 0-10 number cards (dead easy to make) and put them on the carpet, and give your DS some kind of pointer (big stick) and shout "1" or "6" and get him to point at it's number bond pair - can be lots of fun, even better if there is some competition - anyone else in the family who can be roped in (and persuaded to act like they aren't as clever as DS if at all possible)

Good luck!

SoupDreggon that's an excellent idea

Thanks for suggestions - will get on to it. Just don't want it to become a real chore for him and put him off. Your ideas will make it a lot more fun.

we did it by making up silly stories where each bond were were best friends.

1 and 9 went fishing in puddle and caught a great white shark.

2 and 8 went ice skating wearing wellies and swimming googles.

3 and 7 made cakes for dinner using treacle and shampoo..

ec etc etc.

Stuff like that....make it funny, then ask who caught a shark? or wnet ice skating?

Some people might not feel happy using "gambling" kind of cards, but I remember practising number bonds by playing patience, with old-fashioned playing cards. You lay out 9 cards face-up, and deal cards from the pack one at a time. You can cover pairs that make ten, or 3 picture cards.
So you cover 9 and Ace, 8 and 2, 7 and 3 etc. or any three of Jack, Queen, and King, QK, KJJ etc. When you run out of cards in the pack, you turn over the piles. If you get them all turned over, you win; if not, you start again.

My DS loves this, but to be fair, he already understood number bonds before we started it, but it has helped to reinforce them.

Any game with two dice is also useful for reinforcing small number addition. You can also get dice with the numbers on rather than the spots.

Numicon has worked wonders with my dd

I am a sober SALT and work in fiels of SN so not easily swayed but this has been brilliant,utterly brilliant.

I found using 10 cubes broken into 2 sections worked. I started off getting the child to count each pile, then I hide one pile, they count what they have and then have to work out how many I have.

fingers! You always have them with you where ever you go!

I cut out strips from paper with big squares so each strip has 10 squares. The child then cuts them up in different combinations. Count the squares and write the numbers on them. We then work on matching them together again. Lots of repetition is needed though.

I'd start by using a ten frame and two coloured counters and make the pattern obvious.

Following!

Abacus is very useful for number bonds, and place values

Also lego pieces are great to play with, 8 dots + 2 dots = 10 dots, etc.

This game is great too.
www.mathplayground.com/number_bonds_II.html
www.mathplayground.com/number_bonds_10.html
www.mathplayground.com/number_bonds_20.html

There is a fantastic Numberjacks episode you may be able to find somewhere that worked for all mine...

We used to play 'ten frame towers' a lot. Following on from Mrz's suggestion, but as a game.

Ten Frame Towers

I think it helps (is nearly a pre-requisite) if the child can identify how many in a group without counting. E.g. if you hold up 6 fingers they can tell you that there are 6 without having to count them, or if they you throw 5 on the dice etc - then with the 'ten frames' that they can practise 'seeing' 7, 8, 9 without counting. If they can do that, then finding the 'bond' to ten is a matter of visualising. E.g. fingers, find the pair to '3'; if you hold out all 10 fingers, fold down three, but then have to count how many left, that's no good. But if you can just 'see' that there are 7 left, then that is a quick way of doing it; or if you can even just visualise your 10 fingers and imagine folding 3 down and then 'seeing' that there are 7 left, that is even better.

I am actually surprised that you played the game like that tbh, brilliotic. I thought we had kind of similar dc, who went past that stage without going though it.

irvine, no DS definitely goes through the stages of learning/grasping things. Often at a younger age than expected, and fairly quickly - but having grasped number bonds then meant he enjoyed playing the game because he was good at it. ;)

However he is then lazy in applying it if not necessary, e.g. until recently would happily solve 67+8 by counting on, whilst counting down on his fingers, rather than apply the number bonds he knows or the fact that 7+8 is a near double. (To be fair, school always used to be happy with the 'reliable' counting on method too; they taught how to use number bonds to bridge 10 etc but didn't expect children to apply that.)