Fact Family Freebie

I forgot how much I hate the Envision 15.2 worksheet on Fact Families. Let's not see if they can actually understand how to write all 4 related facts with the larger numbers before asking them to write them ALL with the answer FIRST. Addition is no problem but understanding that the whole has to go in the middle for the subtraction sentences is tough. Oh, and then on the assessment there are none in that format. Huh?

I taught the part-part-whole method which I like but I also wanted my firsties to connect better with the vocabulary of fact family and related facts. I was explaining how you are related to your family and one of my smarties piped up, "Yea, that's why they are called relatives." So I know HE got it but for the rest, I made a more concrete fact family. I got this idea from Gladys at  Teaching in High Heels.

  

I hung these characters on the white board and we moved them around, making all 4 related facts. The numbers are sticky notes so I could easily change the numbers. My students wrote their answers on white boards and held them up. I love this because I can easily see who gets it quickly and who looks around in confusion.  Gladys had another good tip about telling the kids that only the 3 family numbers belonged in the house and they didn't let in strange numbers. This TOTALLY worked. During white board practice I heard one of my girls say, "Johnny, you let strangers in your house! 10 and 5 aren't part of the family!"

Here is the worksheet I made for independent practice.  Leave me a comment if you like this or are just glad it is FRIDAY!! I am SOOO ready for vacation. Do you have the week off like we do?
Fact Families