Adding and Subtracting

What’s so scary about a number? Let’s go counting…….

OK, so let’s start with the basics – numbers. I truly believe that if you can count on your fingers to add $2$ plus $2$ to get $4$, you can progress to do the most difficult math problem ever — just by taking baby steps! It all starts there!

Let’s talk about the different types of numbers. I believe there’s a reason we have $10$ fingers: so we can count! You can count to $10$ with your fingers and then start over again! Your first finger always ends with a $1$, and your last finger ends with a $0$.

Even numbers are ones that end with $0,2,4,6,\text{and }8$, and odd numbers are those that end with $1,3,5,7,\text{and }9$. Later we’ll see that the number $2$ “goes into” even numbers perfectly, but not odd numbers.

And it’s OK if you use your fingers to count!

Adding

At this point, you’ll need to learn how to add and subtract. A little bit later, we’ll talk about “carrying” and “borrowing” (also called “regrouping”) when we add and subtract; we may need to do this when we are working with numbers greater than $10$.

Adding numbers is just like adding dresses, for example. If you have $4$ pink/purple dresses and $2$ green dresses, you have $6$ dresses total – it’s as simple as that.