The first weeks of Term 1 are when I want to know who still has their addition and subtraction facts and strategies, without starting the year with a test. These mystery pictures do that job. Every part of the picture has its own question, so you can walk around and see exactly where a student is up to. They suit Valentine's Day or Friendship Week too, and they're my own hand-drawn pictures: a gnome holding a heart and a sloth with a rose.

The two levels

• Level 1, addition (37 questions): mental strategies for the small parts, written addition for the big ones.
• Level 2, subtraction (61 questions): mental strategies such as counting up and constant difference, and the written algorithm.

How it runs

• Lesson 1: warm-up, strategies with worked examples, then the Level 1 picture.
• Lesson 2: the Level 2 picture, then check both against the coloured answer keys. Each part on the key shows its answer, so a wrong colour points straight to the question to recheck.

Maths covered

• MA3-AR-01: apply mental strategies (compensation, partitioning, counting up, constant difference) and written algorithms to add and subtract, and use estimation to check

Good to know

• No prep: print and go. The black and white booklet keeps the colour names in the key.
• Try it first with the free Valentine's Day Colour by Number sample.
• The other packs are Multiplication and Division, or get all six pictures in the Valentine's Day Maths Colour by Number Bundle.