Putting together
What Does Adding Do?
Adding combines two groups into one, and the total never depends on the order.
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Step 1 of 5
Adding means combining groups.
Three apples in one hand, two in the other. Put them together and you have one group of five. Nothing was created — they were just gathered.
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Step 2 of 5
You can also add by counting on.
Start at three and count two more: four, five. This is faster than recounting from one, and it is how most children first speed up.
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Step 3 of 5
Order does not matter.
3 + 2 and 2 + 3 both give 5. This halves how many facts you need to learn, and it is true for every pair of numbers.
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Step 4 of 5
Adding always makes it bigger — except with zero.
Add any positive amount and you move right along the number line. Add zero and you stay exactly where you are.
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Step 5 of 5
Big sums split into easy pieces.
To do 28 + 7, add 2 to reach 30, then 5 more to reach 35. Breaking a hard sum into friendly steps is how mental arithmetic works.
The + sign was first printed in 1489. Before that, people wrote out the word.
The short version
Adding combines groups into one total, and the order you combine them never changes the answer.
Try it yourself
Put 4 coins in one hand and 3 in the other. Swap hands and count again — the total refuses to change.
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