Addition with School Things (Black & White) — Kindergarten

This kindergarten worksheet mixes two kinds of rows so the same school things keep the child thinking. On some rows a group of crayons, notebooks and a ruler sits beside a written number and the child adds to find the total; on others the total is already there and one part is shown, so the child works out the part that completes it — the make-ten, find-the-part idea. Switching between adding and finding a part stops the page becoming automatic and keeps the meaning of the numbers in view.

Seeing that a handful of school things can be split into a few here and a few there — and that those parts rebuild the whole — is the number-bond idea at the centre of kindergarten arithmetic. The adding rows and the find-the-part rows practise the two directions of that bond, and keeping the amounts inside ten means a child can rebuild or take apart any total by counting.

Children who like school things (black & white) enjoy the change of pace from row to row, and it works well for a small group ready to think in more than one direction. When the numbers feel easy, count a fresh group in addition with faces (black & white), or try addition with furniture. You can also browse every addition worksheet or the whole school things collection for kindergarten — each sheet prints cleanly in black and white or plays online for free.