This activity uses simple objects in your home such as dried beans, grapes, candies, toothpicks, etc. to help your child visualize the concept of adding. Begin with three to four beans or other objects. Put them in a pile together on the table or even in your child’s hand. Have him randomly divide the objects into two separate groups. Then have your child identify how many objects there are in each group. “How many are here?” “And how many are in this group?” Finally ask him how many objects there are altogether. Have your child bring the beans back together into a single group to verify his answer. Continue to add more objects in order to make the activity more challenging.

This activity is an excellent way to help your child develop number sense as well. As the original group of objects grows, your child will begin to understand how large numbers are made up of smaller numbers. Don’t worry about making this the focus of your activity, but you might point out that you just made “five altogether” by putting together one and four, and then putting together two and three.

To help him understand, make sure he brings the beans back together in one group then point out that we join sets to find out how many we have in all. As your child gets comfortable with adding, let’s say a group of three, challenge him by adding another bean to the group, and try the processes over again.