Two Parts Make a Whole: Put Together Stories with an Unknown Total

This is not just for paper. A family with three boys and two girls has five children. Nobody arrived today, but the whole is still worth naming. This is worth learning because part and whole thinking is the shape underneath addition and subtraction both.

Watch for it today, and when you spot it, tell someone what you noticed and how you knew. Ask yourself where else the same idea might be hiding, then go and look. You are going to like this one. Some stories have no arriving and no leaving. Two groups simply exist, and you want the whole.

Four red marbles and five blue marbles sit in a bag. Nothing came, nothing left, but together they make nine. This is a put together story. The two groups are the parts and the answer is the whole. You still add, but nothing moved. The groups were always there, waiting to be counted as one.

Watch out for this. In a put together story, nothing arrives and nothing leaves, so words like came and gave will not appear. You must notice that two groups are simply being described. If you go hunting for an action word and find none, this is probably your story type. Little by little, this becomes something you just know.