Activities for Katy Eight

Activities for basic subtraction, finding the difference:

• Count backwards when travelling up or down stairs.
• Have a countdown to doing things, either in ones or even twos, e.g. 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 0.
• Play the magicians tray. There are some items on a tray. Some are removed under a magic cloth. You have to work out either how many are left or how many have been removed.
• Play dice games using 2 dice where the score is the difference between the two numbers on the dice. E.g. throw a 2 and a 6, score the difference, which is 4.
• When eating food or taking items from a packet, keep track of the number of items eaten, and number of items left.
• Find the difference between the number of items on a plate. E.g. number of sausages on parent's plate and on child's plate. How many more does parent have?
• Put a number of toys on the bed, e.g. 5. Close your eyes and remove some, can you guess how many have gone, and which ones?
• Any "Spot the Difference" pictures where the difference changes a number of items, eg picture A has 4 buttons on teddy's jumper and 5 stars in the sky; picture B has 2 buttons and 7 stars.
• Count the petals on a flower or letters in a word - find one with less or more. How many more/less?
• Looking at some shoes or pencils or cups, how many more black ones than white ones, or dark ones than light ones, or plastic ones than china ones.
• Play Snakes and Ladders with a number 1-100 board. When throwing the dice, notice the score is the difference between your starting square and finishing square.