Lego Math Games | Addition Lego Games for Kids | Education Journey in Mathematics

This is another video in our lego series and actually this video uses two or three of my very favourite resources in the whole one because they're just so versatile. You'll need a whiteboard and a pen and just some lego and as you can see I've used a lego plate and I've made a little plus sign and a little equal sign. In this video we're going to explore addition practically moving into the formal recording of those calculations and all using lego and our whiteboards. Okay so Aaron we're going to start with some adding and you see what I've made out of lego. What I've also done is I've just chosen a selection of lego bricks all with different little numbers of I don't know what you call them but we call them bumps in our house the little lego bumps on there so that actually Aaron has got a chance to choose different combinations of numbers. So Aaron I'm going to ask you to choose two pieces of lego to make our little calculation first of all can you choose two and stick them on. So giving them a selection gives you a bit of more a bit more variety with your numbers rather than using all the same lego bricks. What are you going to choose? When you just choose one so you're choosing the yellow one stick that on there and right what about this side? Right so how Aaron is now in his calculation so how many bumps do we have on here? Six plus four equals ten. Right can you check can you count your bumps to see so this is your practical side on this you've actually got the physical finding the numbers to make the calculation then you can actually have the practical idea of counting the bumps on there to see how many you have all together and as you can see now Aaron is sorting through to try and find a brick that actually gets him to his answer. So what brick are you looking for Aaron? A ten. A ten right if you can't get a ten could you get one maybe one two ones that add together and see anything and put them together what do you think? Could you do that? What do you think? What did you have here? You had a six can you find another six? You got a six then? Yeah. A six and then you find a four. Yeah does that make ten? Yeah. Yeah okay do you think now that you could write down what you've on there? Yeah. So now I'm moving from that practical to then actually putting on to the whiteboard actually that formal recording so what did you have first? Six. Yes and it's lovely you have this resource beside you so that the child can actually keep constantly referring back to it when they're actually writing their number sentence. Okay good excellent right now I take these ones off do you think you could try a different one now? What are you going to choose this time? A thin one. A bridge oh my goodness okay so you've made your number calculation so again we've got that practical now you're going to do your counting to see what you've got on here so what is the calculation going to be? Do you think you can write your calculation down straight away? Yes. All right so you can count them all and check. Oh so can you write your answer? So you know what to help so he is now able to transfer that calculation from the practical into the more formal written one okay so now you have to make fourteen how do you make fourteen do you think? Let me see. Let me see now do you think you could do something else instead of counting this all in ones do you think you can count it differently? Yeah. What could you count them? Two, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, two, one. Too many yes so again challenge your child so keep pushing them that little one step further so yes he can count them ones but I know he can count them twos as well so it's showing them that idea of efficiency in maths as well and of using methods that are going to make them a little bit more efficient a little bit quicker at that problem solving so oh what are you doing are you measuring that's clever so now he has actually then taken that concept one step further and he's taking the concept idea that he knows that the blue one is 16 so he's measuring other ones up against it to see if he can get one that's just slightly smaller is that what you're doing what are you trying to find one which is which is at this side oh that's a clever idea isn't it okay now this is a lovely teaching opportunity for you and your child and so yeah this one goes to here look and this one goes to here but uh-oh there's a problem isn't there yeah so again pushing your child into that little problem solving mode where they have to think a little bit more where they have to double check where they have to explain their if you told me this is the same but is it the same i i meant i really i needed at this side but do you need something else are you missing some bumps how many are you missing oh good does that work all right we'll put it down and then you can count so allowing your child to actually solve that problem give them time to do it don't rush in and take over and say what about this one actually give them chance to actually think sometimes you'll need just that wee bit longer right have you checked you've got 14 now okay check let me see you checking he's not using what we talked about to be a bit more efficient himself in the independently which is great okay lovely good so your calculation is great right one more and then we're going to do some subtraction okay yeah you do whatever you want okay what are you going to do yes okay okay so can you write your calculation down we're doing that constant going from the practical into the formal i'm really getting that idea of the correlation between them both oh you're going to draw a picture this time this time who actually and again that's great encourage all those different ways of recording because that's what maths is really about it's not just about sticking rigidly to the same thing it's actually exploring those different ways and if your child actually does prefer recording using the pictorial version allow them to do it initially before you move into numbers that's no problem at all it's actually nice to see them trying different ways of recording okay so what's your answer going to be this time right so check your answer then 20 okay so how are you going to get 20 this time to write down your answer we can't really draw your blocks yet sure you can't you don't know which ones you're going to use you have to look for them first so again though he's approaching this calculation in a completely different way before he actually discovered the answer and went and found his blocks this time he doesn't know what blocks he's going to use because he's drawn it in a pictorial representation so he can actually draw them to find the answer which is just a great way of showing that things can be done in different ways in different orders and i love the fact that he's taking this concept of counting in twos and he's using it over and over again to make himself and his maths more efficient now careful because how many do you need 20 how many have you got on there no count that one again remember we counted it before 10 so immediately he's made that connection he knows he needs four so you're not only addressing the idea of the calculation but he's actually looking at different ways to make it with the lego blocks as well which is more than you can ask from this activity the same number it's just another skill that's being developed so as i say it's just an invaluable resource um for doing these sorts of activities and if you want you can actually encourage your child to choose exactly the same blocks and put them together so if you want them to get an eight and you want them to get a 12 again that's absolutely fine it just depends on your child's but i know that i would like this extra challenge of finding blocks to make it the the same number in a different way so it just depends on your child's ability and have a go that's the only way you're going to get there is just have a go and take a risk okay great aaron good so did you get to 20 in the end okay great