From pictures to numbers
Young children understand addition as putting groups together long before they can work with symbols alone. Picture problems keep that meaning in front of them: two groups to count, then the same problem written as a number sentence. When they count confidently, switch to Numbers only.
Three steps up
- Within 5. Small groups children can see at a glance.
- Within 10. The facts that make ten, the base of later mental maths.
- Within 20. Adding to and taking from teen numbers.
Ready for more? The addition and subtraction worksheets go on to two- and three-digit numbers.
Irish curriculum links
- InfantsStage 1 Sets and operations: children recognise and understand what happens when sets are split apart and joined together.
- ConceptsThe toolkit notes that adding makes a quantity bigger, taking away makes it smaller, and adding or taking away zero changes nothing.
- 1st–2nd ClassStage 2: children select and represent addition and subtraction strategies, with number sentences as one way to record them.
Irish infant classes do a lot of this with real objects before any worksheet: two groups of counters pushed together, a few taken away. Picture problems are the bridge between that hands-on work and the number sentence.
Crossed-out pictures match the “take away” idea children meet first. The toolkit also describes subtraction as finding the missing part or the difference, so mix in “how many more?” questions to widen the meaning.
Summarised in our own words from the Primary Mathematics Curriculum (2023) and the NCCA Mathematics Toolkit.
