Mermaid Addition Match Up

Need a playful way to practice addition to ten?! This addition match up is a must-try. Kids will love pairing the math fact with the matching sum. Print it once and play it again and again!

Then, check out our Editable Math Fact Games in our shop!

I recently bought some mermaid erasers to use as counters, and suddenly anything that gives my first graders a chance to break them out is an instant HIT!  At this point, I would say my students are obsessed with mermaids. One of them keeps saying he is “assessed” – we’re working on that!

To capitalize on their fascination, I whipped up an addition matching game for my brand new first graders.  They needed the extra practice, and I knew this would do the trick!

Getting Ready

To get this addition match up ready, all I did was print out the activity onto cardstock.

I laminated the pages, cut out the puzzle “pieces” and I was done!

Mermaid Addition Match Up

To play, I called over a few students to my small group table.  I told them that they would be the first kids to try out our new matching activity.

Before starting, I asked my first grade friends if they could tell me some strategies to help them solve addition problems.

Hands went up and I called on each student at the table to share their idea.

Using the erasers was the first suggestion (of course!) but we also talked about using our fingers to help us, grabbing a number line and using red/yellow counters.

Then, I showed off the Mermaid Match Up and passed out the pieces with the problems on them to students.

To keep it simple, I just spread the answer pieces with the mermaids on them in the middle of my table.

Each of my students took a different route to figure out the answers (which was great!) and they quickly started grabbing the coordinating answer pieces.

After giving my students time to work the problems out, we checked them as a group as I modeled my thinking out loud.

Since they loved it so much and only solved a few problems at first, we mixed the pieces up and did it again.

Finally, I told my students at the table that they would be in charge of helping out their classmates with this center.  They were the experts and should offer help to anyone who may need it when playing for the first time.

The addition match up was a wonderful way to give them a sense of pride and help me out.

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