Creative Lesson: One More and One Less

• Teaching your child about “one more” and “one less” helps build number sense and prepares them for future addition and subtraction skills.

• Children learn these concepts best through hands-on activities, manipulatives, real-life examples, and engaging practice materials.

• Fun and interactive methods such as counting songs, games, movement activities, books, videos, online games, and worksheets can make learning more engaging and meaningful for your child.

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Teaching Counting Concepts

Teaching young children the concepts of “one more” and “one less” is an important foundation in early mathematics. These skills help your early elementary children develop number sense, understand patterns, and prepare for addition and subtraction. Because young learners think best through hands-on experiences, you should try to include engaging activities, visual models, and real-life examples into your lessons to make learning more meaningful and enjoyable.

When teaching counting concepts to your child, it is important to use a combination of manipulatives, hands-on activities, real-life examples, and guided practice. Young learners understand math concepts best when they can see, touch, and interact with numbers in meaningful ways. Differentiated instruction is also important because children learn at different speeds. Some students may need extra practice with concrete objects, while others are ready for mental math challenges earlier. By using manipulatives, real-life examples, and engaging activities, you can help your child build a strong number sense. These foundational skills support your child’s future math learning. 

With this in mind, I suggest starting these lessons with a hands-on learning activities using small everyday items along with counting songs and finger practice. Once the concept of one more and one less is mastered using physical items, move on to other educational avenues such as age-appropriate books, online games, and worksheets.

One More and One Less Hands-On Activities

One more and one less can be taught in a variety of fun ways. However, by using games, movement, songs, and hands-on materials, you can make learning both interactive and enjoyable. Here are some ways to incorporate hands-on learning with your math lesson:

• Manipulatives: Children enjoy using objects they can hold and move. Provide your child with a variety of small items like buttons, pom poms, small toys, or cereal pieces. Have your child begin with a certain number of objects and then add one more or take one away. For example, your child might start with four toy cars, add one more, and count again to discover there are five. This type of activity helps children visually understand how numbers increase and decrease.
• Number Line Hop: Create a large number line on the floor using tape or paper numbers. Then call out a number for your child to stand on. Once they are on their number, ask then to hop forward for “one more” or backward for “one less” and then ask them what number they are on now. This movement activity combines physical exercise with math learning and helps students remember number order.
• Card or Dice Games: Have your child roll a die or pick a card and quickly say the number that is one more or one less than shown. This game will build fast thinking and number fluency while keeping your child engaged.
• Mystery Number Game: For this fun “mystery” game, you will say a number and give your child clues such as, “I am thinking of a number that is one more than 8.” Your child will then guess the answer and explain their thinking. Children enjoy solving “mysteries,” and this game encourages mental math skills.
• Counting Songs and Finger Plays: Music makes learning more memorable for young children. Songs such as counting rhymes or finger plays can help your child practice adding and subtracting one in a fun way. They can hold up fingers, clap, or act out the songs while counting aloud.
• Real-life Story Problems: Simple stories can help your children connect math to everyday life. For example: “Sam had five balloons. He was given one more balloon. How many balloons does Sam have now?” If your child has a hard time answering the question, have them act out the story with pictures or props.

Other Fun Activities

Some other fun and engaging learning activities include age-appropriate videos, online games, and books. Here are some of my family’s favorites:

• Kid-Friendly videos such as Math Mights 1 More 1 Less by PBS as well as the One Less and One More videos by Harry Kindergarten Music provide children with visual examples and practice to help your child better understand the concept.
• Reading about numbers adds diversity to your lesson, incorporates ELA into your math lesson, and is another way to help your child visualize numbers. Books such as Chicka Chicka 1, 2, 3 by Bill Martin, Jr. and Michael Sampson is one of my children’s favorites for counting and number sense and Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins is a great farm-filled adventure emphasizing one less.
• Online games help kids practice numbers in fun and engaging ways. Birthday Candle Counting from ABCya is a great way for your child to practice counting to 10 and IXL Kindergarten Math has multiple “one more and one less” categories up to the number 20, giving your child an excellent way to practice what they know.

Using multiple engaging ways to teach math number sense concepts such as one more and one less to young children is more than just helping them learn about numbers, it’s about creating positive math experiences. Using a combination of different resources and hands-on engagements makes learning fun and will help your child master early math skills which will better prepare them for future math concepts. With practice and engaging instruction, your child will learn and recognize the relationship between numbers and how they relate to their everyday lives.

My One More and One Less Worksheets

The concept of one more and one less is not only a mathematic idea that all students need to learn about but is the basis for higher mathematical learning. Colorful and captivating lessons will not only be educational but will be better received by your child because they are fun. That’s why I created a worksheet packet to keep your children engaged in the lesson and ready to learn more.

My worksheets packet contains multiple worksheets with the option of practicing up to 10 or up to 20, along with the answer keys. Here are 3 of the worksheets:

One of the worksheets will ask your child to write the number that is one more than a given number (up to 10).

Another worksheet asks your child to write the number that is one less than a given number (up to 20).

And one worksheet brings a fun “train” theme where your child will write both the number before and the number after a given number on the train cars.

My worksheet packet contains these pages as well as 5 additional worksheets along with their answer keys to help your child practice and master this early elementary school number sense lesson.

What kinds of activities helped your child to master counting? Please share your lesson ideas with the community in the comments below.