Purpose

Learners practice working out the difference between two numbers using one-to-one matching.

Materials

• Counters or bottle-caps

How to play

1. Hand out a number of counters or bottle-caps of two different colours to each learner (e.g. some red ones and some blue ones).
2. Ask the learners to tell you how many red ones they have and how many blue ones they have.
      “How many red ones do you have? (5) How many blue ones do you have?” (2)
3. Ask them whether they have more red ones or more blue ones.
      “Do you have more red ones or more blue ones?” (red)
4. Ask them what the difference is between the red ones and the blue ones (they can line them up next to each other and see how many don’t have a partner).
   “What is the difference between the number of red ones and the number of blue ones?” (3)
5. Ask them how many more they have of the one colour than the other colour.
   “How many more red ones do you have than blue ones?” (3)

Variations

Give two children (e.g. Unathi and Lindokuhle) a different number of counters or bottle-caps (preferably the same colour). Ask “How many does Unathi have and how many does Lindokuhle have?” “Who has more?” “How many more?”