Useful Mental Addition Strategies:

Model Addition: use physical objects to show the joining of two groups. Students can then count all the objects.

Counting On: play a board game using two dice. Subitise the first (read without counting), then count on from the number, reading each of the dots on the second dice.

Skip Counting: add numbers by skip counting. Eg. 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 is the same as "two, four, six, eight".

Doubles: 12 + 12 is the same as double 12.

Near Doubles: 12 + 13 is one more than double 12.

Make to ten/ make nearest ten: 8+3 (8 + 2 is 10, and 3 is one more than 2, so 8 + 3 = 11).

Partition numbers: 54 + 52 (50 and 50 is 100, 4 and 2 is 6, so 54 + 52 is 106).