Break It Up (again)

Today, we’re continuing with our “Break It Up” strategy for mental addition. Sometimes, you might see a problem like 28 + 17 and think, “That’s too hard! I need a pencil!” But you really don’t—this is actually quite simple if you break one of the numbers into parts.

Let’s look at how that works with our example:

• 28 + 17
• I’ll break 17 into 10 and 7.
• First, I add 28 + 10 to get 38.
• Next, I add the remaining 7, which brings the total to 45.
• You might be wondering, “Where did the 10 and the 7 come from?” Well, 17 = 10 + 7, so we’ve just split 17 into two parts to make the calculation easier.

That’s the whole idea of “Break It Up”: split one number into smaller pieces, then add each piece step by step.

Try These in Your Head
For each problem, pick one number to break up and then add each part one at a time:

• 29 + 14
• 53 + 28
• 35 + 47
• 45 + 36
• 65 + 27
• 58 + 24
• 28 + 25
• 29 + 44
• 48 + 33
• 56 + 35