Two Digit Addition Stories from Home, Garden, and Helping Others

Think about where you have seen this before. Harvests, deliveries, and offerings all get added in pieces across a day and totaled at the end. This is worth learning because story problems are where all these skills finally get used.

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.

Take a deep breath and look at this. Now use it. Twenty three tomatoes were picked in the morning and eight more in the afternoon. How many altogether?

Three ones plus eight ones is eleven, so bundle a ten: the answer is thirty one. Read the story, find the numbers, decide plus or minus, then add carefully with regrouping if the ones pile past ten. Finish by asking whether thirty one tomatoes sounds sensible for the story.

Try this last step every time. After you get an answer, reread the question and ask whether your number answers it. Many wrong answers are correct arithmetic aimed at the wrong question, and rereading catches that in seconds. When you get it right, say thank You to God, who gave you that thinking mind.