Adding Two-Digit Numbers: Practice at Home, Grade 2

Adding two-digit numbers is a milestone: children use place value, not just counting. In Grade 2 they add within 100, and within 1,000 later in the year.

What your child is working on

For 37 + 25, children learn to add the tens (30 + 20 = 50), add the ones (7 + 5 = 12) and put them together (50 + 12 = 62). Carrying is just a tidy name for moving ten ones into the tens place.

Try it at home

Use dried beans and rubber bands. Put 37 beans on the table as 3 bundles of ten and 7 loose. Add 25 more, as 2 bundles and 5 loose. Ask: “How many bundles now? How many loose?” Your child may find 5 bundles and 12 loose, and then trade 10 loose beans for a new bundle: 6 bundles and 2 loose, which is 62.

Then try without beans: “Say 37 + 25 in tens and ones.”

Where children slip

Writing 12 in the ones place (37 + 25 = 512) is a very common slip. The bundles help, because ten loose beans cannot sit in the ones place.

Practice online

Practice on the free Add two-digit numbers within 100 page. Every wrong answer is explained, so a short session works well. More are on the Grade 2 skills page.