• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Fantastic Fun & Learning

Fun learning activities and things to do with kids

  • About
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy and Disclosure
  • Themes
  • Holidays
  • Printables
  • Concepts
    • Alphabet
      • Letter A
      • Letter B
      • Letter C
      • Letter D
      • Letter F
      • Letter G
      • Letter I
      • Letter J
      • Letter K
      • Letter M
      • Letter N
      • Letter O
      • Letter P
      • Letter Q
      • Letter R
      • Letter S
      • Letter T
      • Letter U
      • Letter W
      • Letter Z
    • Art
    • Crafts
    • Fine Motor
    • Gross Motor
    • Phonemic Awareness
    • Phonics
    • Math
    • Outdoor Play
    • Science
    • Sensory
  • By Age
    • Baby
    • Toddler
    • Preschool
    • Kindergarten
  • By Month
  • Books
    • Books and Activities
      • Book Lists
      • Book Related Activities
  • Shop
You are here: Home / By Age / Kindergarten / Snowball Addition Doubles Math Activity

Snowball Addition Doubles Math Activity

By Shaunna Evans Leave a Comment · This content may contain affiliate links.

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on PinterestShare on Email

We’ve been having fun with snow themed activities lately. Last year we used these little snowmen to practice counting and one-to-one correspondence.  Since my oldest is in first grade this year I decided to repurpose them into an addition activity to practice doubles facts. If you have a preschooler or kindergartener this activity can easily be modified to practice early addition skills too.

Snowball Addition Winter Math Activity-Use this as a hands-on way to teach basic math facts. We practiced learning doubles and modeling doubles plus one and doubles minus one.

Why Doubles Facts?

If you have a kindergartener or first grader who is beginning to learn doubles you may wonder why these facts are taught. Basically doubles facts are one of the first sets of math facts taught. Examples include 3+3=6 and 9+9=18.  They are relatively easy to learn and they can be used for various mental math activities. Once kids know them these facts also serve as anchors to solve near-doubles facts like 3+4=7 and 9+10=19 (which are also referred to as using the doubles plus one and doubles minus one strategies).

Now back to today’s activity…

Materials

These are the materials we used to practice doubles facts to 20. If you are doing fewer facts, then you will not need as many snowmen.

  • “Snowballs”-white pom poms
  • Two sets of small (foam or paper) snowmen labeled with the numbers 0 to 10
  • Large (foam or paper) snowmen labeled 0 to 20

Materials for Snowball Addition

Steps

We started by choosing two small snowmen with matching numbers. Those were the addends for our addition problem. Then Lovey added the appropriate number of snowballs above each snowman.

Winter Math-First Grade

To find the sum of the doubles she counted all the snowballs. Then she found the appropriate large snowman to represent the sum of all the snowballs. Although the goal is to get kids to a point where they memorize the doubles facts this serves as a great tool for helping them understand the process of combining the addends to form the total.

Hands-on Activity for Teaching Doubles

We continued on modeling various doubles facts. Then we started manipulating the snowballs to add one or remove one to show doubles plus one and doubles minus one. This is a more difficult strategy for some first graders to grasp, so modeling it in a hands-on way can be very helpful.

First Grade Math-Doubles Facts Winter Addition

Doubles math can be a bit challenging at first. Let us know if this helps in the comments! And if you have any great tips for teaching doubles, share those too! I know our readers are interested in learning more.

For more hands-on ways to teach addition and subtraction facts check out this article.

 

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on PinterestShare on Email

Filed Under: Kindergarten, Math, School Age, Winter Tagged With: addition, doubles, first grade, snowmen

Previous Post: « Enter to Win a Chuck E. Cheese’s Guest Pass
Next Post: Kid-Made Snowman Treat »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

Search

Join in the fun!

Facebooktwitterpinterestinstagram

Subscribe via Email

Hi, I’m Shaunna!

Welcome to Fantastic Fun and Learning. Here you'll find plenty of great ideas for fun learning activities and things to do with kids.

Popular Right Now

Preschool Name Activities

Free Printable Scavenger Hunts for Kids

Make Germs Scatter Hand Washing Science Demonstration

Our Recent Posts

  • Patriotic Fireworks Collage Art Project
  • Preschool Songs for Summer
  • Ice Cream Fine Motor Mats

Copyright © 2023 | Privacy Policy