Basic Addition

Basic addition involves taking an amount represented by one number and combining it with the amount represented by another number to find out how much is represented by both numbers together.

For example:

4 + 3 = 7

If we count out 4 objects such as squares we have the following:



Then we can count out 3 squares to represent the second number in the addition sentence:



We can put them together to form the following:

+

We can now count all the squares giving us the answer of 7 squares or 4 + 3 = 7.

Adding Using Your Fingers

For many just beginning with addition, using your fingers is the best way to figure out addition problems. For problems with numbers (or operands) less than 5 this works out well. Simply hold up the number of fingers on each hand as represented by the problem and count them. Taking the above example we could hold up 4 fingers on the left hand and 3 fingers on the right hand. We can then count all of the fingers together to arrive at our answer of 7.

For problems where you have numbers greater than 5 another technique can be used. This method only applies to problems where one of the operands is less than 10. This technique involves taking the first number and simply saying "start with 4" (as in our example above). We now want to add 3, so with either hand we hold up 3 fingers and start counting up 5..6..7. When finished counting our fingers, we will have arrived at our answer.