Equal Sharing Activity for Year 1 Maths

Understanding how quantities can be shared and organised into groups is an important foundation for multiplication and division. This engaging equal sharing activity gives Year 1 students a hands-on way to investigate number relationships by distributing spider legs equally across spider bodies and calculating how many legs there are altogether.

Using cut-and-paste craft pieces and recording sheets, students model mathematical situations with concrete materials before representing their findings with numbers and equations. This supports the Year 1 mathematics focus on solving equal-group situations through materials, drawings and number representations, while providing meaningful practice with making equal groups.

Because this resource doubles as a craft activity, students can proudly display their completed spider creations around the classroom, creating a colourful maths bulletin board that showcases learning. For an even bigger display, print the templates on A3 paper to create larger spiders and more eye-catching student work samples.

Creative Ways to Use This Making Equal Groups Resource

This resource can be used in a variety of engaging ways:

• Maths Craft Lesson – Students build their spiders, share legs equally and record the total number of legs.
• Problem-Solving Challenge – Give students different numbers of spiders and legs to encourage flexible thinking about equal groups.
• Make Equal Groups Year 1 Maths Rotations – Add the craft to a hands-on maths station where students model and solve equal-group situations using manipulatives before completing the activity.

Download This Equal Sharing Activity

This resource is available as a ready-to-download PDF and an editable Google Slides version. Simply download, print and prepare the craft pieces for an engaging maths lesson. Please note that you will be prompted to make your own copy of the Google Slides file before editing.

This resource was created by Lindsey Phillips, a TeachStarter collaborator.

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