In this instructable, i'll be teaching you how to add. Although you SHOULD know how to do this through public education, you might need a little review. Or maybe you want to introduce your toddler to mathematics early.

Adding is a necessary component in math. and life.

Let the learning commence.

Step 1: Begin!

Think of addition as grouping things together, by counting.
So, i have 2 bottlecaps on the left side of my paper, and 1 on the right.
If i want them to be grouped, or added together, i make a simple math problem.

Step 2: Basic Addition.

My math problem would look like this: 2 + 1 =

To solve this, we simply count how many there are in total.
Count 'em up, and you find that there are 3 bottlecaps all together.

But not everything is 2 + 1 = 3. Sometimes there's bigger numbers. Sometimes there's decimals.

Step 3: Adding Bigger Numbers.

Here, we have two double digit numbers. This is a little harder.

We'll be adding, but instead of side-to-side, we're gonna go down.

So, where do we begin? With problems like this, you ALWAYS start with the top number and on the left. In this case, look at the five in 25. Since we're adding from top to bottom, we need to add the 5 and the 2(the one in 32).

Calculate 5+2 in your head. It equals 7, so we put a 7

Now, we move over to the right, and add 2+3. We get 5.

Hey, look! Under the small bar, there's a number. That's called a sum, and the numbers we added together are called addends.

Note:

to add numbers with decimals, all you have to do is add normally, but keep the decimal point in the same spot. ex: 2.5+1.7= 4.2