Number Walls: Find the Missing Brick in the Bottom Row

One brick is missing from the bottom row of every wall on this 1st grade number walls page, and one brick further up is filled in. The first wall reads 4, 1, 2 and a blank along the base, with a 7 sitting in the second course above the last pair. Four four-course pyramids are laid out this way. Before any adding can start, the child has to work out what number joins the 2 to make 7 - and only then build the wall upward as usual.

That first step runs the other way from everything else on the page. Every other brick is found by adding two numbers below it; this one is found by taking a known brick apart, which is subtraction wearing an addition problem's clothes. It is the missing addend question - 2 and what makes 7 - and children who are fluent at adding often stall on it the first time. Once the base is complete the wall behaves normally, which is a fair reward for the harder opening.

Print the PDF free and let the child write the missing addend as a question, 2 plus what makes 7, before answering it; naming the operation is most of the difficulty. If the reverse step is too much, the build every row version keeps four courses with a complete base, and the walls to 10 version drops to three courses and smaller sums. Doubles and halves is a gentler place to meet the same take-apart thinking, and number of the day works the same range.