Recently my students teacher's advisor came in and teamed up with Kayla to teach a math lesson. We all decided that adding, and finding the sum, was a good lesson to work with our extended day kinders on. Mike, or "Dr. C" to the kiddos, brought iPads from Pacific University for the lesson. We have iPad minis, but he brought regular iPads and the students were excited to work on the large screen. He introduced an app called Find Sums. It turns out that we have this app already loaded on our school iPads. We have so many apps on our iPads, but I don't have the time to explore each one - is anybody else in the same position? So, I was glad to see this app in action and I will definitely be using it in my class more.
Here is what the app looks like when you want to start the program.
You press the app and then you see this screen.
Next, you can go into Settings and set the number that the children will be adding up to. We started everyone off with finding sums to 10. All you do is press the number and then the children are set up.
The great thing about this game is that it is played with a partner. The kids loved it too! They played this for about 20 minutes and stayed engaged the entire time!!! And, it has the children finding sums in a ten frame. They are so used to the ten frame and it helped them visualize the missing addend.
Player A picks a number.
Player B sees 8. Then has to think - 8 + ? = 10. Player B makes a choice.
If the choice is correct, the screen will fill in with the appropriate number of apples.
If the answer is incorrect, the screen clears and the students try again.
Once the kiddos got the hang of 10, we changed their settings. Some children did Find Sums to 12, 15 and 20.
Here is what the game looks like to start off. The bottom is full of numbers and the screen has empty ten frames. As the children pick, the numbers disappear. When all of the numbers are gone, then you start the game over again.
I was taking pictures at different stages so these do not all match up, but you get the idea!
We even had a couple of students who went up to 100! It was so great to hear them counting by 10's and 1's. YES!!!!
I love how this game:
- self corrects
- kept their attention
- had them working on addition skills
- encouraged partner work
In additon, at the end of their session, you can click Progress and check their stats. If they did not have at least 85% accuracy, we did not move them up a level. Those students needed to keep practicing at the their current level. If they had 85% accuracy, then we moved them up a level and then checked in to see how they did.
And...............drumroll............this is a FREE app!!!!! Woohoo!!!!
Check it out. You and your students will love it!
