How to Teach Addition to Young Child

My young daughter is not readily catching on to addition. She knows some of the facts; however, I don't feel that she truly understands the concept of addition. Do you have any suggestions to help? - Mathematically Challenged
Answer: While young children definitely have to learn the basic addition facts, it's just as important for them to understand what addition is so they'll know when to use it. This is best accomplished through their handling objects.
Make a set of flash cards with easy combinations such as 1+2, 2+2 and 3+2. Then have your daughter choose a flash card at random and lay out blocks, checkers or coins to represent the problem. For 2+3, she would lay out a set of two counters and a set of three counters. Ask her to count the total number of counters. She should also say, "2 plus 3 is 5." Go through all the cards that you have made using this procedure.
One of the most helpful skills for 6- and 7-year-olds to acquire is an understanding of number families. Simply put, a number family consists of all the combinations of numbers that when added will produce the same sum. For example, the number family for 5 is the set of pairs 1, 4 and 2, 3. To teach your child all these combinations, place 5 blocks in front of her and have her move them around to show all the combinations that will produce the sum of 5. Later on, you can repeat the activity by placing 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 blocks in front of your child.
Children can also learn number families through playing our bean-shaker game. Color one side of two dozen beans with nail polish or a marking pen, then put two to 10 beans in a can and shake. The first player shakes and dumps out the beans and then counts and notes the number of painted and unpainted beans on a chart. For eight beans, the result could be three painted and five unpainted. This player continues to shake the can and dump out the beans until he or she hits a previously shaken combination. The next player then tries to shake out a larger number of combinations to win.