lesson
Updated 1 month ago · 7 views
Imagine you have 4 red apples in your left hand and 5 green apples in your right hand. If you drop them all into one bowl, how many apples do you have?
In a Put-Together (Total Unknown) story, we start with two separate parts and combine them to find the unknown total.
📊A clean, colorful Part-Part-Whole bar model diagram for Primary-2 math. Top bar shows 'Total = ?' with a question mark in a large purple box. Underneath, it splits into two connected boxes: Left box labeled 'Part: 4 Red Apples' with 4 red apple emoji icons, right box labeled 'Part: 5 Green Apples' with 5 green apple emoji icons. An animated glowing bracket joins both parts together to reveal 'Total = 9'. Clean cards with soft rounded corners and friendly bold fonts.
Putting the two parts together gives us our addition sentence: 4+5=9 apples.
We can also draw Number Bonds to show how two separate parts connect to make one whole total.
📊A vibrant Number Bond graphic for 2nd grade math. A top circle labeled 'Total: 9' branches down with two lines to two lower circles: 'Part: 4' on the left and 'Part: 5' on the right. Friendly, clean, colorful vector styling with high contrast.
For bigger numbers, we can use Double Ten-Frames to help us visualize and organize both parts!
Putting Parts Together
Maya collects 8 star stickers, and Leo gives her 6 heart stickers. How many stickers does Maya have in all?
We know both parts (8 stars and 6 hearts), but the total is unknown. We write the addition sentence as 8+6=?.
📊Two ten-frames side-by-side representing 8 + 6. The first ten-frame has 8 yellow stars (leaving 2 empty spots). The second group shows 6 pink hearts. An animation moves 2 hearts into the first ten-frame to make a full 10, leaving 4 hearts in the second frame. Below, show equations updating: '8 + 6' -> '10 + 4 = 14 Total Stickers'. Bright friendly styling with high contrast.
By adding 2 to 8 to make 10, and then adding the leftover 4, we find the total is 14 stickers.
How do we know right away that a story problem wants us to find the total?