Where is my Fact Family?

This nifty lesson helps kinesthetic learners reinforce their knowledge of the commutative property. Students will love the challenge of matching equations with their fact families.

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Help young mathematicians identify and understand the relationship within fact families with this addition and subtraction lesson plan. Geared toward first grade learners, this math lesson gets kids up and moving as they try to match their given equation strip to domino cards placed around the room. The process and end result should leave learners with a working understanding of the number combinations that make up a fact family, while boosting their basic addition and subtraction skills in the process.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to identify fact families and understand the commutative property for addition and subtraction.

Introduction

(10 minutes)

Begin the lesson by reviewing the concept of a fact family.
Explain that a fact family consists of all of the addition and subtraction combinations that two numbers and their sum can have. For example, 1 + 2 = 3, 2 + 1 = 3, 3 - 1 = 2, and 3 - 2 = 1 make up a fact family.
Write on the board three numbers that can form a fact family (e.g. 3, 4, and 7).
Ask students to construct the fact family formed by the numbers. After a few minutes, have them compare answers with one another.
Call on volunteers to write down each of the four equations in the family. Make clarifications as needed.

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