March 24th, 2018

Using the Hundred Board!!!:)

This tool is essential to having your child understand the concept of patterns in numbers.  It helps them to practise skip counting, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.

A fun activity:  Your child can use his/her finger to track the numbers or you can use a game piece to move about the board.  The idea is that you will give them mathematically instructions, beginning with one number on the board, and they will move their finger/piece to the next number, based on the instructions you have given.  You can do this 2 times for young children or any number.  The goal is for the child to end up on the same number you do.  (They don’t get to see your tracking:)

Example:  Starting on 17, you can say, “Add 5” and they move to 22. (hopefully:).  Then you say “Subtract 11” and they move to 11.  You can stop at that point and have them tell you where they are and then you can reveal your own board.  For every correct answer, you can have them give themselves a point (or not)  It can just be a fun and rewarding challenge.  Children have to concentrate and stay focused to do this activity and you can observe how they solve each instruction.  (finger counting, automatic moves, other)

With younger children you can just make the challenges easier until they can do more.  Looking for patterns in number.  (ie  If I move from 4 and add 10, I get 14.  What is similar between the numbers?  If I add 10 to 14, I get 24.  What is similar?)

Have fun.  You will come up with your own creative ways to use the Hundred Board:)  And it’s better than a worksheet!