Ways to Make 10
Warm-up
Show a ten-frame with some counters. Ask: How many? How many more to make 10? Do this several times. Students respond with both numbers: Seven, and three more to make ten. This daily routine builds automatic recall of the partner pairs.
Explore
Pairs work with a ten-frame and 10 counters of two colours. One partner places some red counters; together they find how many yellow are needed to fill the frame. Record each combination as a number bond. Find all pairs and discuss: how do you know you have found them all?
Formalize
Number talk: 8 + 5. Ask for strategies. When making-10 emerges, slow down and model it: 8 needs 2 more to make 10. Where does the 2 come from? From the 5, leaving 3. So 8+5 = 10+3 = 13. Record with a number bond diagram.
Ways to Make 10
Build a class anchor chart showing all the making-10 pairs on ten-frames. Post it prominently. If you see an 8 in an addition, you know you need 2 to make 10. Look for the 2 in the other addend.
Practice
Students complete 6 making-10 number bonds, then solve 4 additions using the strategy with a number bond diagram for each. Exit ticket: 9+4. Students write the number bond showing their strategy.
Exit ticket
Students complete 6 making-10 number bonds, then solve 4 additions using the strategy with a number bond diagram for each. Exit ticket: 9+4. Students write the number bond showing their strategy.
Step 1: Ask: "How many does 8 need to make 10?" Students who know their partners-of-10 answer 2 immediately. (If they don't, pause here — partners of 10 must be automatic first.)
Step 2: Split the 6 into 2 and 4. Record it as a number bond under the 6: the 2 goes to the 8, the 4 waits.
Step 3: Now the problem is 10 + 4, which students read straight off a ten-frame: 14.
On the ten-frames: build 8 in one frame and 6 in the other, then physically slide 2 counters from the 6-frame to fill the 8-frame. The answer is visible without counting: one full frame and 4.
Step 1: Give partners 10 two-colour counters in a cup. They spill, then record how many red and how many yellow (e.g., 7 red, 3 yellow → 7 + 3).
Step 2: After several spills, ask: "How many DIFFERENT ways are there? How do you know you found them all?"
Step 3: Guide students to organize their pairs in order: 0+10, 1+9, 2+8, 3+7, 4+6, 5+5, 6+4 … As one number counts up, the other counts down.
Step 4: The proof of completeness IS the pattern — there's no gap for a missing pair to hide in. This is a Grade 1 version of a mathematical argument, and it's worth celebrating as one.
What happened: two things are tangled — the student may not trust that order doesn't matter (commutativity), and "one hundred" leaked in because ten is written with a 1 and a 0.
Step 1: Address order first, concretely: build a tower of 4 red and 6 blue cubes. Flip the whole tower upside down — now it reads 6 blue and 4 red. Ask: "Did any cubes appear or disappear?" The total cannot change.
Step 2: Address the numeral: count the tower — ten. Write 10 while saying "this is how we write ten: one full ten-frame, zero extra." Compare with 100 spoken aloud ("one hundred") so the difference is heard as well as seen.
Step 3: Return to the fact family: 4 + 6 = 10, 6 + 4 = 10, said and built both ways.