Draw five monkeys and one alligator on construction paper. Cut out the animal shapes. Place a small drop of glue toward the top of six Popsicle sticks leaving enough room at the bottom of each stick for a child to grasp. Press one animal shape onto each drop of glue until all five monkeys and the alligator have been placed onto sticks creating six stick puppets.
Teach the students the lyrics for the song "Five Little Monkeys" by Dr. Jean Feldman: "Five little monkeys swinging from a tree, teasing Mr. Alligator, 'Can't catch me.' Along came Mr. Alligator quiet as can be, and snatched a monkey right out of that tree!"
Choose six students to stand in front of the class. Give five students a monkey puppet to hold and one student the alligator puppet. Have the students sing and act out the song. Remove a "monkey" at the end of each verse. Repeat the song using four, three, two and one. Write subtraction problems onto the blackboard to follow along with the song.
Give each child ten jelly beans. Ask them to separate their jelly beans by color and count how many beans they have of each color. Ask them to put them back into one pile and count together to ten.
Ask the children to eat one jelly bean from the pile of ten and count how many they have left. Write 10 - 1 = 9 on the board.
Create more problems on the board with the remaining jelly beans, asking the children to eat the amount subtracted, until all of the jelly beans are gone.