“Your mission, should you choose to accept it (um, there really is no choice) is to save all the animals in trouble!”
This is how our mission to addition began. Boo received a letter that her help was needed to save the distressed animals (while secretly soaking in some math skills).
And while she didn’t walk away quoting math facts, she had a BLAST. There is nothing wrong with a little academic immersion through play! (Feel free to download the Mission Addition PDF)
The destination to rescue the animals included three pit stops (you may notice a Diego-ish underlying tone):
1- Find the hidden “plus” and “equals” sign located in the dark and mysterious forest (aka living room). Great way to be introduced to those math symbols!
2- Use addition mats (included in the free pdf download) to add up the silly fish in crocodile lake. I thought our second stop should include snacking on swedish fish. Boo counted the number of swedish fish in each yellow box first. She then slid the fish over to the green box to add ’em up!
3- Climb the tallest mountain (aka was going to be her bed, but she made a last minute decision that we needed to climb down staircase mountain) to help the spiders (round magnets) solve addition problems using their sticky spiderweb (was going to be a magnetic white board, but I couldn’t find ours so we just used one of our dollar store cookie sheets)
After completing the three activities, we located the secret tupperware full of desperate animals waiting for our help. And then- and only then- was our mission complete.
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| Don’t these animals look like they need to be rescued? |
I included the pdf so you can share this addition mission with your kiddos! The pdf also has some additional ideas in case your child is begging for more math! Ha!!
We also read Loreen Leedy’s book Mission Addition. It’s a cute book- although it is geared more for the elementary aged child.
I hope you and your child will have as much fun with your mission to addition as we did!
Happy Teaching!
Happy Teaching!
