How can I help my Year 2 DD with her number work - having trouble with addition and subtraction

[Concepta]

My DD is in Year 2 - she is 6. Children in Ireland start at 4. The school she attends is using the Revised Curriculum which is play based. She is struggling so much with addition and subtraction. Can anyone advise the best way for me to help her over the holidays. She will be starting KS1 in September. Many thanks.

Does she understand the idea of a number line? So she can physically see what happens when she adds and subtracts numbers.

YOU COULD USE BUTTONS OR LEGO BRICKS...PUT THEM INTO PILES

I should do it with things like shopping. For example ask her to put 4 carrots in a bag and then say you want to add 2 more-how many are in the bag? You could then say that is too many-take away 3 and how many are left? You could do a similar thing with cooking or setting the table.There are lots of everyday activities.
Play board games with dice.

I started a similar thread a while ago about my DS - got lots of helpful advice here.

Thanks Buda - visited your thread - got some great websites that I intend to visit. Hulababy - she can use the number line, but she doesn't seem to understand it. Thanks everyone else, I will try all the suggestions. The class are using the revised curriculum and don't do a lot of sums on paper - just play type situations. Hopefully all will come together. I am like you Buda I am afraid she will get behind next year. The class is being joined up with another class next year - and the school is losing a teacher so that makes me even more worried - the teacher won't have the same time to concentrate on children who get left behind.

Great games on here: this page

My DD2 had a big problem with subtraction. We solved it by physically demonstrating with smarties, shells, bricks, counters whatever. For units, tens and hundreds you can use different colours. I think some children just need to get a physical grasp on a concept.

My little girl also struggles with addition & subtraction . She is 6 and in Y1 - she has being doing KUMON maths for about 10 weeks now & the improvement has been staggering !
It is a very repetative programme - starting from an easy base to build the childs confidence . Worksheets are set every day & you visit a centre once a week.

We talk about food too, often we have games in the car.... Daddy gives you four apples and Mummy gives you two more, how many have you got? Or you have four and Daddy eats two, how many have you got left?
Number lines are great, we have lovely KS1 workbooks with gold stars...

If she doesn't 'get' numbers then number lines will make no sense to her. I would start with physical things (bricks, smarties, whatever) and then move on to pictures of things, and then talking about things whilst working with a number line - at some point I suspect it will 'click' and she will be off and running.

DS(5) is a maths whizz and loves numbers for their own sake but he still needs to have it related to actual physical things sometimes before he can wrap his brain round it (like multiplying by zero, for example - if I have zero apples, what do I have? if I have zero smarties, what do I have? If I have zero lots of 5, what do I have? )

(and they even say from time to time that it's likely eventually that Tom and Jerry will be banned cos it's violent)

better get taping on the vcr and dvd-r...as i love it!