The Addition Charts

 

First Exercise

Materials

  • Addition Chart 3, one blank one filled in starting with 0 – 9 across the top and the same 0 – 9 down the left side.
  • A box of prepared slips, with all combinations.

Exercise

  1. The child chooses any slip he likes. He reads: e.g. 7 + 8 = .
  2. He places his finger on the red 7 and another finger on the blue 8; he brings the two fingers along the board, horizontally and vertically, until they meet, where he will find the answer, 15.
  3. He writes the answer in his sum book: 7 + 8 = 15

Second Exercise

Materials

  • The Second Working Chart, or Addition Chart 4.
  • A smaller box of slips containing the essential combinations, e.g. 2+7=

Exercise

  1. The child places his finger on the 2, goes to the end of the row and straight down to meet the finger on the row 7 at 9.
  2. As before the sums are written in his book.

Third Exercise

Materials

  • The Skip Chart or Addition Chart 5.
  • Box of slips containing essential combinations, e.g. 2+8=.

Exercise

  1. Placing the finger on the 2 and a finger on the 8, the child goes to the end of the respective rows.
  2. He brings the fingers together, along the end boxes till they meet, at 10 (or else follows each outer box).

Fourth Exercise

Materials

  • The (positive) Blank addition chart.
  • Number tablets.**

Exercise

  1. The child arranges all the tablets face upwards on the table.
  2. He then takes a number slip and sees 5+3= .
  3. He puts his finger on 5, and another finger on 3, and moves them along the lines till they meet.
  4. He, knowing his combinations well by this time, will say 5+3=8, and he will fetch the number 8 tablet and place it in the square he has marked.
  5. He continues with the slips until he has finished them all and completely filled in the blank chart with the number tablets.

Note: The tablets should be taken out of the box before commencing with the slips and placed in this formation.

                    10                
                  9 10 11              
                8 9 10 11 12            
              7 8 9 10 11 12 13          
            6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14        
          5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15      
        4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16    
      3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17  
    2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

The above formation shows the number of essential combinations that make up a particular number, eg: There are 7 ways of making 8: 1+7, 2+6, 3+5, 4+4, 5+3, 6+2, and 7+1.

**Each “tablet” has one number on it and is the size of the “square” upon which the child places it.  Also, the size of the squares in the chart should be large enough for the child’s fingers to be able to “trace” and place tablets upon with relative ease.

Written Records

The child records what he has done, with all the main charts, in his sum book.

Age of Great Interest

5½ to 6½ years

Below is a picture of the entire set of charts and tablets. The top four are identified above.  The bottom two charts are those used for error correction, and can be found in Lesson 21.