Germ-Themed Addition/Subtraction

In an attempt to connect math to our germ unit, I designed this simple dice game to practice addition and subtraction. (This activity is available as a free download at the bottom of this post.) One dice holds 1-6, and the other is the + or - signs. Caleb rolled the number dice twice, recorded his number on the student handout, then rolled to find out if he was to subtract or add the two numbers. You can see, we still work with manipulative (poker chips) to determine the answer. In the corner of the photo you can also see my Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) board. I use that to remind Caleb of how to correctly write his numbers. While he can usually get it to look right, if I'm not paying attention he's not using proper technique (I'm going to a HWT workshop in June, I can't wait to get tips!)

You can download this Germ-Themed Dice and student handout in a Google Doc for free. It has three pages of dice, which we printed off on cardstock, and the fourth page is the student handout. To make sure we didn't go into the negative numbers, I just had Caleb always put the larger number in the first column.

Remember, I am working with two other homeschooling moms, Andrea from No Doubt Learning and Erin from The Usual Mayhem on this K-1 Germ Unit!  So be sure to stop by and see what germ-y activities they are doing. You may also want to take a peek at our Germ-Themed Pinterest Board that we are using to coordinate our planning. At the end of the unit (3 weeks), we will also provide a Google Doc that has all the free resources you can use for planning your own Germ lessons. 

Darci the STEM Mom