What is addition?

What is addition?

You use addition to find the total amount, when you have two or more numbers.

You use the addition symbol (+) to add numbers together and then the equals symbol (=) to give you the answer.

Let's add these pieces of fruit together to find the total amount.

You want to add 3 oranges and 2 pears together.

When you write this as a number sentence, you put the addition symbol (+) between the two numbers.

3 + 2

To find the answer you can count how many pieces of fruit you have in total.

When writing the answer in a number sentence you use the equals symbol (=). This shows that the left and right side have the same value.

3 + 2 = 5

There are 5 pieces of fruit in total.

Activity: Using addition

Complete this interactive activity to learn more about addition and then put your knowledge to the test.

Finding a total amount

With addition, it doesn't matter which order you add the numbers, the answer will be the same.

Let's add these strawberries together.

You can see that if you add 5 strawberries and 2 strawberries together you get 7 strawberries in total.

However, there is another way to think about this.

You can also add 2 strawberries to 5 strawberries.

Both ways, the total amount is 7 strawberries.

It doesn't matter which order you add the numbers the total amount is the same.

Adding more than two groups

You can also use addition to add more than two groups together.

Let's use addition to find the total amount of fish.

Let's add the 3 groups of fish together.

There are 4 blue fish, 2 green fish and 3 yellow fish.

If you add them together, you can see there are 9 fish in total.