Adding God's Creatures — Sums to 20

Memory Verse "Pairs of clean and unclean animals... came to Noah and entered the ark." — Genesis 7:8-9 (NIV)

Learning Objective

Students will practice addition with sums up to 20, using pairs and groups of animals as examples.

Lesson Content

Noah brought animals onto the ark in pairs — that means groups of 2. Two lions, two elephants, two birds! 2 + 2 = 4. Two pairs make 4 animals!

Now let's add bigger numbers. 6 + 4 = 10. 8 + 5 = 13. 9 + 7 = 16. When we add numbers bigger than 10, we can count on from the bigger number.

Here is a trick: to add 8 + 5, start at 8 and count up 5 more: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. So 8 + 5 = 13!

Hands-On Activity

Draw pairs of animals going onto the ark. Write addition sentences for groups: If 2 cats and 2 dogs and 2 birds board the ark, how many animals is that? 2 + 2 + 2 = 6. Try more animal addition problems.

Discussion Questions

  • How many animals are in 3 pairs?
  • What is 7 + 6? How did you figure it out?
  • Why did God send animals in pairs to the ark?
← Previous Lesson Back to Course Next Lesson →