Hopping Forward on a Number Line to Show Addition

Look for this idea outside of your lessons. Rulers, thermometers, and measuring tapes are all number lines. Learning to hop on one prepares you for all of them. This is worth learning because the number line will carry you all the way through fractions and beyond.

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. Let us think about this slowly. A number line is numbers written in order on a straight path.

To show 5 plus 4, put your finger on five and hop forward four times, landing on six, seven, eight, nine. The landing spot is your answer. Count the hops, not the numbers you pass over, because starting number is not a hop. A number line makes addition look like walking forward, which is exactly what it is.

Try this check. Count your hops before you look at the number you landed on. If the problem said add four and you made five hops, you already know something went wrong. Checking the hops is faster than redoing the whole problem later. Show your work to someone and explain it in your own words.