Addition and Subtraction in the Grocery Store

Lesson One: Addition

Unit Lesson One

Grade Level:
Kindergarten
Introduction: In this lesson, students will practice addition in
real world scenarios. This lesson will move from group work, to
Time Needed: partner work, and finally, to individual work.
45 minutes

Materials Needed: Background: The idea for this lesson was taken from Math
 Apples Expressions Common Core. I used this curriculum as inspiration but
 Bananas created the lessons and worksheets on my own.
 Oranges
 Carrots
 Broccoli Standard(s): CC.K.OA.1 Understand addition as putting
 Red Pepper together and adding to and understand subtraction as taking apart
 Fruit and and taking from.
Vegetable
coloring sheet
 Worksheet for Engagement: This lesson will begin with a whole group
Partner Work
activity. The teacher will have multiple baskets of different fruits and
vegetables brought from home. She will explain to them which are
fruits and which are vegetables as she is setting her pretend grocery
store up. She will give the students a story problem first by acting
out a scenario for them. “I went to the grocery store yesterday and I
ended up buying two bananas. I brought (pull a student up) with me
and she bought three apples. How much fruit did (student’s name)
and me buy at the grocery store?” Use actual bananas and apples to
display this for the class. This will engage them in the lesson. The
teacher will continue to expand the question. “Who bought more
fruit, me or (student’s name)? How much more fruit did (student’s
name) buy? Fill in the sentence, “Miss. Lehmann bought _______
less fruit than (student name). This will be done three more times
having students come up and tell story problems using the fruits and
vegetables.

Exploration: Students will be given a worksheet of ten different

vegetables and fruits. The teacher will explain that this is their very
own grocery bag. They will cut and color their vegetables and fruits.
Instruction will be given that it is extremely important that they color
their vegetables the way they look in real life. Go over each
vegetable and fruit with them, along with their color. Carrots are

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orange, broccoli is green, the pepper we have is going to be a red pepper. Bananas are
yellow, apples are red, and oranges are orange. The teacher will have each of these
fruits or vegetables set out for the students to look at for reference. After students have
finished coloring their ten pieces of produce and cutting them out, instruct them to add
all their produce with the partner sitting next to them. Students will then figure out how
many fruits and how many vegetables they have as a pair. Then, the teacher will
instruct students to work with their partners to figure out how many they have of each
fruit or vegetable. After each of these questions are answered, students will be
encouraged to sort their produce however they want and record how they’ve executed
the activity. Each partner will receive a worksheet to record what they find.

Explanation: The class will move to the carpet for an activity with white boards.
This will be an activity that will engage them individually and assess their ability to add
and orally justify their answer. Mrs. Fabulous, a puppet, will come out in front of the
class. She will explain that she just bought four oranges yesterday. (The teacher will
draw four oranges on the whiteboard and write a number four underneath). She went
back to the grocery store and bought three more oranges. (The teacher will leave a
space and draw three more oranges, writing a number three underneath). She said she
got home and counted eight oranges. (The teacher will write an eight on the board).
What did Mrs. Fabulous do wrong? Where was her mistake and why? Have a student
explain what she did wrong. Hopefully, someone will say she added her oranges wrong.
The teacher can then write an addition sign between both sets of oranges and an
equals sign. She will then ask the students to add up the oranges and hold up their
whiteboards when they have written their answer. This is where the teacher can check
for understanding. Depending on time, this activity can be completed again using
different amounts of produce.

Extension: Extension can be made when students are answering the question
about why puzzle penguin was wrong. The teacher can dig deep and pull out higher
thinking from the student’s answers. This lesson relates to the child’s real world. Ask
children to count how much fruits and vegetables their mom gets at the grocery store
or how many they have in their fridges when concluding this lesson.

Evaluation: Students partner worksheets, where they recorded their answers with
a partner will be collected to test their ability to count and sort, as well as their ability to
add fruits and vegetables. Evaluation will also take place during the whiteboard activity.

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Grocery Bag

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 Grocery Bag Worksheet
Name______________________
Total of Fruits

+ + =

Total of Vegetables

+ + =

Fruits Vegetables Total Produce

+ =