How to Teach the Doubles Facts So Your Students Actually Understand

Shelley Gray — Fri, 15 Jul 2022 17:23:45 +0000

What are the doubles facts in math? How do you teach them? Why are the doubles addition facts important? By the time you finish reading this article, you’ll have an excellent understanding of all things “doubles” and also leave with some free resources and fun games to get you started teaching this important math concept in your classroom!

WHAT ARE THE DOUBLES FACTS?

Doubles refers to adding the same number twice, for example 5+5. Generally when we refer to the doubles addition facts in elementary math, we are referring to facts from 1+1 to about 12+12.

The doubles are not so much a math strategy as a set of facts that students should know. When kids know the doubles, they are able to use them as a building block for other mental math strategies such as near doubles. But that’s another article.

THE DOUBLES FACTS IN REAL LIFE

Doubles are generally an easy set of facts for students to remember because they are all around us in real life. Think of the wheels on a car (2+2), the legs on a spider (4+4), fingers and toes (5+5), or the eggs in a carton (6+6).

REMEMBERING THE DOUBLES FACTS

Your students will have an easier time with more advanced mental math strategies and even with multiplication by 2 if they just know the doubles math facts. But that doesn’t mean you have to resort to memorization only.

It is important for students to work with math facts in a hands-on way as they build their understanding.

One of the best ways to work with the doubles facts is with ten frames. Have your students build the fact on the ten frames with different colors.

You can also have students build doubles using a rekenrek, or even simple colored cubes.

FREE Doubles Fact Booklets

to help your students master the doubles addition facts

Get it for free here.

LOOKING BEYOND THE DOUBLES FACTS

To understand why the doubles math facts are important, it helps to have a vision for where you are headed. Here are some other concepts that rely on the doubles.

NEAR DOUBLES

Near doubles are facts like 5+6, 10+11, or 3+4. For these facts, we can use what we know about doubles to solve a new fact. For example, for 3+4, we can think, “I know that 3+3=6, so 3+4 is just one more!”

MULTIPLICATION BY 2

In third grade when students learn to multiply, the 2 times table is generally the first set of multiplication facts they learn. We teach these facts by making a connection to the addition doubles. For example, to solve 2×3, we can think, “2 groups of 3” or 3+3.

DOUBLES FACT PRACTICE

There are lots of simple ways to practice the addition doubles, but some of my favorite involve games.

The first one is called Dice Doubles. This takes 1 minute and is something I used to do with my classes all the time to increase automaticity. My favorite part of this game is that each student is only competing against themselves, trying to increase their own score each time.

See how to play Dice Doubles HERE.

The second game is another dice game called Doubles Race to 100. It’s a fun partner game that is sure to raise the energy level in your classroom!

See how to play Doubles Race to 100 HERE.

FREE DOUBLES FACT BOOKLETS

These booklets will be fun for your students to complete. Not only do they focus on the addition doubles, but also on how we can make different connections using 1 more, 1 less, 10 more, and repeated doubling!

Get this free booklet here.

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The post How to Teach the Doubles Facts So Your Students Actually Understand appeared first on Shelley Gray.

Extending The Doubles and Near Doubles Facts: An Addition Strategy

Shelley Gray — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 12:56:02 +0000

The doubles facts are generally an introductory set of facts that we want our students to become automatic with. We can relate the doubles to so many things around us – fingers and toes: 5+5, wheels on a car : 2+2, or the eggs in a carton: 6+6.

Our goal for the doubles facts is automaticity. This means that students no longer have to think much about the equation in order to solve it. Rather, they just “know” the answer and are able to say the answer within 1-3 seconds. For example, when a student sees the equation 8+8, he should know that it equals 16 without even stopping to think about it.

Building a strong foundation of doubles will help students with other mental math strategies, particularly the near doubles.

Near doubles involve facts like 4+5. To solve this fact, our students can think, “I know that 4+4=8, and 1 more is 9.”

The goal with the near doubles facts is to build relationships and form connections between facts. We can achieve this by using manipulatives regularly.

Here’s a video that will explain this in more detail:

Teaching the doubles and near doubles facts is important, but it shouldn’t stop simply with the numbers to 12. We need to extend these facts into tens and hundreds as well, and teach our students how we can still use the doubles and near doubles facts in order to solve equations with these bigger numbers.

For example we can use the fact 3+3 to solve 30+30 or the fact 6+6 to solve 60+60=___.

FOCUS ON GROUPS OF 10

To begin teaching students to extend the doubles and near doubles facts, focus on groups of 10. For example, we can think of 40+40 as 4 groups of 10 plus 4 groups of 10. Similarly, to solve 400+400 we can think, “4 groups of 100 plus 4 groups of 100.”

EXTENDING THIS CONCEPT TO OTHER MATH STRATEGIES

This “extending” concept can be used in many other circumstances. For example, when teaching your students the plus 1 facts, teach them to extend that knowledge past simple 1-digit numbers. For example, if we know 8+1, then we can easily figure out 80+10 or 800+100.

NEXT STEPS:

If you would like full support for teaching addition strategies in your classroom, check out The Addition Station HERE.
Get full support with the Near Doubles strategy with this complete unit.

Download a FREE activity sheet for practicing the extending the doubles facts strategy HERE.

Find task cards to reinforce the extending the doubles strategy here:
- Doubles and extensions task cards for fourth grade
- Doubles and extensions task cards for third grade

Find task cards to reinforce the doubles addition facts here:

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