Doubles
Background Information & Activities

© 1999-2010 BrainPOP. All rights reserved.

Many young learners use their fingers or counters when they first learn to add. Help your students learn strategies that help them add and subtract faster. Memorizing doubles facts will help them manipulate numbers and empower them to use multiple strategies to approach math problems.

Review with your children that a doubles fact is a number sentence that repeats the same addend, such as 3 + 3 = 6 or 8 + 8 = 16. Using manipulatives or other classroom materials, give students opportunities to practice combining groups with the same number. Record their number sentences on a chart for the class to use as a reference tool. Encourage your students to memorize doubles facts by making flash cards or making up songs, stories, and poems. Help them understand that they can use doubles facts to solve other number sentences too.

Ask your children to find the sum of 5 + 6. They can use counters or their fingers, but they can also use doubles facts. If they know 5 + 5 = 10, they know that the sum of 5 + 6 will be one more. Thus, 5 + 6 = 11. Practice solving other doubles-plus-one facts together, such as 3 + 4, 7 + 8, and 9 + 8. Make sure children write down or say the doubles facts that can help them solve the equations. They can also use doubles-minus-one facts to help them solve equations. Write down 9 + 10 and have your children find the sum. If they know that 10 + 10 = 20, they know that the sum of 9 + 10 will be one less. Thus, 9 + 10 = 19. Practice solving different number sentences together.

Doubles facts can also be used to solve subtraction problems. Review that fact families are number sentences that use the same numbers and opposite operations, such as 2 + 3 = 5, 3 + 2 = 5, 5 – 2 = 3, and 5 – 3 = 2. Write down 4 + 4 = 8 and have your children find its related fact: 8 – 4 = 4. We recommend using number triangles to help your children visualize how the numbers and operations are related. Then challenge them to find the difference of 18 – 9. Help your young learners understand that if they know 9 + 9 = 18, then they know that 18 – 9 = 8. They are related facts.

Empower children with different strategies to help them solve tricky math problems. Help them understand that there are often different ways to solve a problem. They can use the facts that they already know and apply them as they approach new problems.

Doubles Teacher Activities – Click Here!

Doubles Family Activities – Click Here!

Doubles Teacher Activities

© 1999-2010 BrainPOP. All rights reserved.

Doubles Dutch

Exercise and do math! Divide the class into small groups and jump rope (or even double dutch) together. Call out doubles facts and have students jump rope their answer. Then have a group member call out a double fact and have other members solve. Make sure members switch roles so everyone gets a chance to jump rope and call out facts.

Double Up

Give every student an index card with a number. Then have students mingle around the room to find partners that are part of their doubles fact. For example, a student with the number seven will need to find students who have the number seven and fourteen. Then have the groups write down their doubles facts and related subtraction fact. Challenge students to find other ways to group (i.e. a student with the number eight can join with two fours, or find a sixteen and another eight) or combine to make doubles plus or minus one facts.

Doubles Family Activities

© 1999-2010 BrainPOP. All rights reserved.

Half Off

Help your child memorize doubles facts. Use items in your home as counters. Collect and even number of items and ask your child to divide them into two equal groups. Then have him or her write out the number sentence. Repeat the activity several times or over a few days to help your child commit doubles to memory.

Double Clap

Play a clapping game that helps your child memorize doubles facts. Clap out a number and count them together. Then have your child clap out the same number. Then clap the sum together, counting up. You can clap and count to the beat of a song or sing or rap the numbers together.