Your preschooler or kindergartner can learn addition and subtraction concepts by composing and decomposing the number 10 with this jelly bean Easter ten frames math activity.
A great activity for preschool and kindergarten aged kiddos is working hands-on with objects to learn addition and subtraction.
We decided to work with jelly beans for our activity, but you can use other objects such as m&ms, fruit loops, popcorn, legos, etc.
Not only is this a great way to teach children to decompose numbers into pairs in more than one way, this activity also helps develop your child’s understanding of recording equations and numbers and strengthens their ability to think flexibly about numbers.
Use Jelly Beans to Compose and Decompose 10
My kids are very visual learners. The concept of decomposition is a pretty complex math concept for young learners.
My goal was to create an activity that made it more tangible in order to help them grasp how numbers work and how numbers can be broken up (decomposed) or put back together (composed).
Using concrete objects like jelly beans (because yum!) to decompose the number 10 helps children to visualize decomposing 10 and putting together different combinations of ten.
We also took it one step further and used our Decomposition Activity Log to produce equations to match the combinations of 10 to help verbalize their observations.
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Easter Ten Frames Jelly Bean Math Supplies
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Free Jelly Bean Math Workbook
Grab your free jelly bean math workbooks at the end of this post. Inside you’ll find great worksheets including:
- Decomposition Activity Log
- Decomposing 10 Activity Worksheet
- Ways to Make 10
- Compose 10
- Easter Ten Frames
Composing and Decomposing the Number 10 with Jelly Beans
To begin our activity, we used our ten frames to visualize the numbers 1-10. This is a great activity to do with a preschooler.
I even used the Easter ten frames with our toddler and we counted out the jelly beans as we matched them with the correct number.
Thea, my 4yr old used her Decomposition Activity Log to record her observations as she worked through the activity.
I let her work freely and explore while I supervised. Her one rule was that she couldn’t record the same observation twice.
After she completed her observations and had worked with her jelly beans a bunch, she moved on to complete the “Ways to Make 10” combinations of ten worksheet.
With minimal direction, she started her sheet and continued to use her jelly beans to visualize the equations that she was making.
To compose 10, she worked through the “Compose 10” work page that includes both visual and equation combinations of 10.
I read the directions to her and she worked through the worksheet composing and decomposing the number 10. After she completed the page, I had her present the worksheet to me.
Talk through key learning terms and discussion questions included below.
Key Number Decomposition Terms to Discuss
Add
Subtract
Equals
Decompose
Equation
Jelly Bean Decomposition Math Activity Discussion Questions
1. What does the word decompose mean?
2. What symbol do we use to show that we have an equal amount of jelly beans?
3. How many jelly beans are on your mat?
4. When you put the jelly beans together, how many combinations can you make that form 10?
5. Can you tell me a story about your jelly beans? (ex. Thea told me a story about having 10 jelly beans. She gave me four jelly beans and then she had six left.)
<< CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE JELLY BEAN MATH WORKBOOK >>
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This book features more than 50 hands-on activities that are organized into easy to implement categories, so you know exactly what concepts your kids are learning!
Grab your copy from Amazon today or get instant access to this great book by purchasing a downloadable PDF!
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Easter STEAM Activities
Check out these awesome Spring and Easter STEAM activities that are the perfect way to incorporate Science, Tech, Engineering, Art, and Math into the season!
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This Easter Egg Sudoku activity is a way to introduce kids as young as preschool to the rules and the use of logical reasoning to solve a problem.
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There may still be snow on the ground here in Wisconsin, but Spring is quickly approaching! To celebrate, here are some free Easter worksheets for kids!
These worksheets include a few different exercises for kids of different learning levels.
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This activity is a great way to have some Spring, St. Patrick’s Day, or Summer fun and it reinforces color matching as well as supports fine motor skills.
Color by Hexadecimal Rainbow Coding Activity
Color-by-number activities are a great way to introduce basic coding skills by following a key code, matching pieces and patterns to create an image, and executing an algorithm or series of steps to complete the activity!
This Color by Hexadecimal Rainbow is an excellent activity to introduce hexadecimal color coding other to young kids with a recognizable and well-known object!
Preschool STEAM Easter Sequences Coding with Jelly Beans
We love jelly beans and always try out the really weird flavors just for fun, so I made these sequence coding worksheets to work on pattern recognition with my toddler who is absolutely a future engineer and kid coder!
Grab these Easter Sequences Preschool Unplugged Coding Activity worksheets to practice sequencing today and finish writing sequences with jelly beans!
Hexadecimal Color by Number Easter Eggs
Do you remember doing color-by-number activities when you were a kid? I loved following the key to color different sections of an image to reveal cool patterns or images! My kids love color-by-number activities including pixel coloring images.
This Hexadecimal Color-by-Number Easter Egg worksheet is a great introduction to how HTML color coding works and other basic coding skills!
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Are you looking for a fun Spring craft that your kids will be crazy about??!! This Springtime squeegee butterfly art activity is the perfect way to make a Spring craft with a neat sensory experience!
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Recycle Your Old Crayons into Suncatchers!
Repurpose crayons into beautiful sun catchers from crayon shavings! Use crayon shavings to make Easter Egg sun catchers with this repurposed crayon activity perfect for Easter and Earth Day!
Meet Toni, the Maker Mom behind Our Family Code
Hey there, I’m Toni! I’m a software engineer and Maker Mom that finds my joy in unleashing my children’s curiosity by exploring STEAM concepts with my fantastic five!
When I’m not chasing toddlers or raising tweens, you can find me tearing things up and putting them back together over here at Our Family Code.
I am the owner and content creator of multiple educational websites designed to increase access to STEAM & STEM education with a focus on teaching computer science and coding to kids of all ages!
You can also find out more about me by visiting ToniGardner.com!
