Drawing a picture often helps inspire reluctant writers to start writing. This is especially true of young children, who might need to see how the numbers interact before they actually write about them. Ask the students to imagine they received some fish for Christmas, for example, then lead them with a few questions relating to what type and color of fish. Have them draw a picture of the fish in their aquarium and write a number story based on the picture. Older students might be challenged by first creating an elaborate collage or mosaic out of torn paper or ceramic tiles and then being told to create a number story based on the artwork by choosing its shapes or colors. Use Real Data One day, two little monsters were going to their three beds. There were four birds on their beds. Five minutes later, six cars passed by and seven monsters jumped out of the cars. Then, eight typhoons blew, nine trees fell down, and ten typhoons came. When children have engaged with simple number stories, and are confident to do so, the next step is to introduce number stories involving different maths functions.

One way of making things more complex is simply by including higher numbers. This could be something like: Make up a story! For example, ‘One day a magic bird flew through the forest. It flew over three hills.’ (All try to draw three simple hills.) ‘Then it saw the monster with four red eyes!’ (Draw the red eyes) The simplest way to introduce sharing is with halving – i.e. giving out a set of objects between people or puppets. Linked to the last point is this one – stories can get in touch with our emotions. Even in number stories, this can be the case.

Explore our most popular collections

Read how you can use activities like this to set EYFS children on the road to maths mastery on the Twinkl Teaching Wiki! How can addition stories help children?

Children really understand sharing through a story, because it is something they experience all the time in life. The baker makes six buns, each with four cherries on. Two buns are sold. How many cherries are left?’ Higher Numbers

Popular Subjects

Number bonds of 10 are pairs of numbers that when added together provide you with the number 10. Number bonds are also called 'number pairs' or 'number partners.'

One night there were two ghosts underneath my bed. Three vampires were in the roof. Then I looked out side and saw four witches. Then there were five monsters. Then I saw six or seven mummies. After that there were eight aliens and nine or ten wolves. There’s a difference between being good at maths in the abstract, and being good at it in practice. There are lots of counting objects, and even some calculating. The music really helps! The more multisensory you can make learning at this stage of life the better. Using Numbers Stones The Enormous Turnip– In this, the man tries to pull the turnip out. Then the man and his wife (one more). Then the man and his wife and the dog. Each time there is one more.

What are addition and subtraction number stories?

There are many simple early books that are like a kind of number story. A lot of these have different quantities of things in them. A good example is this book – One Ted Falls Out Of Bed by Julia Donaldson: If you are looking for a challenge, why not try this number bonds to 20 activity booklet and see how your children get on.