Number Bonds Game / FREE Printable Worksheet

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Why Number Bonds are Important

Number bonds are the first step to teaching children number sentences and choosing a number bonds game to introduce them is a great way to support learning. Using number bonds in math is sometimes overlooked but they are fun and can teach a lot! Using number bonds is a great tool for students to truly grasp the knowledge between the relationships of numbers as well as decomposing numbers. It is the first step to learning addition and subtraction! This post is all about a fun Number Bonds Game that I created. It is complete with free printable worksheet just for you! 

If you have followed along long enough you likely know that we don’t do many traditional worksheets in our house. We love to follow the Montessori method of learning as much as possible so that is why this lesson is considered a game!

Children will learn much better when the concepts presented to them are manipulative and concrete. This means you use items they can move and touch. When they are able to pick up the “units” and move them how they please they are gaining way more knowledge of the concept than just by staring at numbers on a piece of paper.

There also is an app for everything these days but let your kids get HANDS on with this activity / game and it will be much more beneficial in the long run! As your child gets older you can use abstract numbers by writing the numbers with pencils or a dry erase marker if you laminate this free printable below. 

Number Bonds Game

There are many ways to play this number bonds game but first,

Items Needed To Play

1. Print out this Number Bonds Game / FREE Printable Worksheet PDF 
2. Find some abstract items you can use as units. We used pom-poms that I ordered from Amazon. Some other ideas include:
   • Linking Cubes: These are great for a lot of other Montessori style lessons too! 
   • Eureka Counters For Classroom: They have fun ones to use from circles to animals! 
3. (optional) Laminate this PDF so you can reuse it
4. Dry erase marker or pencil if not laminated 
5. DICE (You can use a standard dice or a fun big one, totally your choice!) Here are a few options:
   • Hand2Mind Make Your Own: I LOVE the idea of these because you can write the numbers you want to work on. And you can work on number bond for numbers 10+
   • Hand2Mind 12 sided: This is great to get to work with numbers up to 12.
   • Foam Dot: This is great if you are also using dots as your units and for children learning to count! 

How To Play This Number Bonds Game: 

1. Roll the dice.
2. Put the number side up that was rolled in the larger top circle.
3. Pick out the same number of units (whichever you choose to use) and lay them out for child. 
4. Let the child come up with all the different number combinations they can think of. Their number bonds. We wrote down tally marks for each one as a conversation topic at the end. (3’s have only 1 number bond.)
5. NEXT, take them all away in your hand and set however many you want in one small circle and let the child guess how many are left in your hands. (i.e Number at the top was rolled as a 5, put 3 units/pom poms in one circle, let child guess that you must have 2 units/pom poms in your hand) 

This is a super fun way for your child to fully grasp the relationship between numbers and how to form number sentences. You can start by saying 3 and 2 make 5 and that will later translate to 3+2=5 and you can do the same for subtraction! Number bonds are a natural progression to math that creates the best understanding for kids! 

Another fun Kindergarten Montessori lesson is teaching early readers all about Nouns.

See my FREE Noun Sight Word Worksheet HERE!

I hope this gives you a fun way to present the idea of number bonds to your child! Enjoy!

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