← All lessons

Adding Things Together

Two piles become one pile

Play this lessonNarrated out loud. No account, works offline.

Also available in Spanish. The app stops after two lessons a day and suggests something to do away from the screen.

What it teaches

These are the lines the lesson comes back to, and the ones a child actually remembers afterwards.

If you can count, you can add.

Two and five is the same as five and two.

How it starts

This is adding. Adding sounds like a hard math word, but it is not. Adding means: push two piles together, and count the whole thing. That is it. If you can count, you can already add. You did the hard part in the last lesson.

How the lesson goes

Every adding problem, forever

  1. Get both groups
  2. Push them into one pile
  3. Count the whole pile

Start at the bigger number

  1. Say the big number first
  2. Count up only the small one
  3. Fingers are a tool, not cheating

The question at the end

Three blocks and two more blocks. How many blocks?

For the grown-up

Every lesson ends by handing the child something to do off the screen, and telling you what was taught so you can use the same words.

Try this today: Get 4 socks. Get 3 more. Push them into one pile and count the whole pile out loud with your hand.

Then: Show the pile to a grown-up and tell them the number before they count it.

More in Math

The whole library is free

Twenty-four narrated lessons for ages 4 to 9, in English and Spanish. No account, no sign-up, no ads, and nothing your child does in the app ever leaves the device — you can check that yourself with the network tab open. Open the lessons.