Create a class store to help students practice addition and subtraction. Set up your store on a class shelf and display small items students can buy with class money. Reward students for positive behavior, meeting goals and making right choices with class play money. Have students keep a ledger of the money they receive, adding each amount given in the ledger. Once a week, allow students to purchase items from the store. Have them subtract the amount they spend from the ledger. Check ledgers for accuracy.
Place several props such as small toys in a box. Based on the items in the box, make up math word problems requiring addition or subtraction to solve. Instruct students to work with a group of four to six students. One pair out of the group chooses a math word problem and uses the props in the box to solve it. The rest of the group decides if it was solved correctly. Students take turns acting out the math problems. Keep the box in a work station for student use. Change the props and word problems periodically.
Read a math-based story such as "Splash" by Ann Jonas aloud to students. During the first reading, have students just listen. Afterward, read it aloud again asking students to point out the addition and subtraction used in the story. Instruct students to draw a picture illustrating an addition problem from the book and a subtraction problem. Have them use pictures, numbers and words to illustrate their examples of the two math concepts from the book.
Place several glass jars filled with various small items such as shells, marbles or buttons on shelves in a work station. Put the jars where students can clearly see them but do not allow them to touch the jars. Instruct students to choose two jars, examine them without touching them and to estimate the number of items in each. Provide paper and pencil for students. Instruct students to write an addition problem and a subtraction problem comparing the two jars based on their estimate of the amount in each jar.