Number of the Day: Ten More and Ten Less

Two equations sit in the middle of this 1st grade number of the day page and they are the reason it exists: 14 + 10 = and 14 - 10 =, each with an empty box for the answer. Around them are the usual boxes - the number word on handwriting lines, the numbers before and after, tens and ones, a dot grid to draw the number in base ten blocks, a 0 to 30 line to mark it on, and rows of arrows to count on and count back.

Adding ten is where place value stops being a label and starts doing work. A child who writes 14 as one ten and four ones has the answer to 14 + 10 already in front of them, and a child who counts on ten ones to reach 24 has not yet joined the two boxes together. That is precisely what a teacher should look at here: the tens and ones box and the ten more box, read side by side. The block drawing gives the child something to move rather than count.

Print the PDF free and ask the child to say what changed and what stayed the same between 14 and 24 - the ones digit never moves. The teen version stays under 20 and uses ten frames instead of blocks if adding ten is still too far. The up to 99 page adds one more and one less alongside these two and stretches the line to 100. Number walls and doubles and halves put the same numbers to work in addition facts.