Students are practicing yet another addition and subtraction strategy, make a ten. Knowing how to make a ten is a fundamental skill to understanding our base-ten system. Through the use of counters, unifix cubes, ten frames, and numerous games students are exploring combinations of ten.
Knowing combinations of tens will aid first graders in solving related facts as well as algebraic equations. For example, knowing 2 + 8 = 10 makes it easier to understand that 20 + 80 = 100, and that 32 + 48 = 80. Students are working to identify fact families, or a set of facts that uses the same set of numbers with inverse operations, such as 6 + 4 = 10, 4 + 6 = 10, 10 – 6 = 4, and 10 – 4 = 6. First graders are also solving for the missing addend.
Like doubles facts, students will continue to practice make ten facts. While early on they may use their fingers or counters for assistance, the goal is to memorize these facts in order to become faster and more efficient at manipulating numbers.
