Now personally, I love using number bonds, but for our students, number bonds can be a little problematic.

Watch the video or read the transcript below:

What Is A Number Bond

Now if you’ve never seen a number bond and you’re wondering, “What the heck is this number bond thing?”, it’s basically another way to show how we can break apart a number.

In the past, we’ve done this through equations, and we’ll say things like 239 is equal to 100 plus 139. Well, a number bond is just taking that information and putting it into this.

The number bond may look a little different. This one may look a little sideways to some of you. It doesn’t matter how it’s arranged, but the idea is that we want kids to understand that we can take a whole, the 239, and break it into parts. Sometimes it’s two parts. Sometimes you might have more bonds. Oftentimes 239, you might see it as 200, 30 and 9. The cool part about number bonds is they help kids see that they can break it apart into how many ever parts, as long as all of those parts come back together and make the same whole.

The Biggest Problem with Number Bonds

But one of my biggest, biggest problems, and it’s not just mine, it’s because I’ve seen kids do it, is that when they’re trying to put amounts into a number bond, they just don’t know how to put it into the actual bond. They can break the numbers apart and they can tell you that 10 can be broken into a six and a four, but they don’t know where to put it.

Now one of the biggest reasons is because in a number bond, typically the circles are all the same size. This one’s a little bit different, where the whole, the circle for the whole, is a little bit bigger, but oftentimes you will see them where they’re the exact same size, like this lovely worksheet right here.

Now, this worksheet, again, a kid could tell you that in the #1 problem, there’s a one and there’s a two, and they could even tell you that there’s three total. The hard part that we see, especially for young kids, is figuring out where in the world to put the amounts.

And oftentimes, like on this worksheet, in particular, the number one way of seeing kids do it is they’ll put a one in the top, a two down below because they’re trying to represent that domino and they put it in there not realizing how the number bond works.

So here’s the biggest problem I have:

Too much time gets spent helping kids figure out just how to put numbers into the bonds and the instructional time is not spent on helping kids understand the real mathematics that’s happening here.

How To Use Number Bonds Effectively

So a couple of ways that I’ve seen it be really, really awesome, this comes from mymommyreads.com, and this was out on the playground.

They created these big number bonds. Kids are physically out there putting other kids into the number bonds, moving kids around, making the amounts as they’re actually learning the mathematics.

Another cool one is right here. I love these little plates.

You can find them in a lot of spots. This comes from Dr. Jean, and it’s helpings kids understand that we’re putting these together, and then the cool part about this activity is you can actually take those pennies, or whatever you put into the plate, and then move them into the whole amount.

One of the big parts, when kids are actually physically working with a number bond, is to have them use the objects and take the objects, have the two parts, the three and the five, and then move those objects and put them into the whole. So, they see the three and the five coming together to make the larger amount of the whole of eight.

Now my big thing, I talk a lot about this, is that kids need to be working in these different types of models. They need to be modeling concretely, they need to be doing representations like drawings, and they need to be doing the abstract.

The hard part of a number bond is it jumps kids straight to the abstract. And yes, we need kids to work there, but if we start there, especially with our young kids (I have seen curriculums using number bonds in kindergarten before kids are even able to count out objects!!!!) they’re supposed to put these digits into the number bonds.

And so to me, the sweet spot of working here is when you can be doing all three of these together. When you can be having kids do the concrete of the number bond, have them physically make the amounts, put them into the circles. Then draw pictures of what they’re doing and finally attach the symbols to it, do all three in the same activity, not separately.

So again, the concrete is when they’re using objects. So have them physically put objects inside of their number bonds.

Have them draw visuals inside of their number bonds. And then we attach those symbols to it.

So I want you to really evaluate how is your curriculum using number bonds? Are you jumping straight into the symbols?

If so, you’ve got to backtrack a little bit, because no matter what grade level your kiddos are on, you need to focus on using C-R-A: Concrete, Representational, and Abstract when they’re doing number bonds.

So if you’re working with kids with fractions, get out those fraction tiles or fraction circles, whatever you’ve got. Have them physically put the fraction tiles in there. Have them see that if they put 3/4 as their whole, what are ways that they could break that apart?

Then move into the representation.

Have them draw it out. And then finally, we attach the symbols to it.

The abstract symbols come after kids have really developed an understanding of what’s happening here. Once they understand how we’re taking a whole, breaking it into parts, or how we’re taking parts and putting them together to make a whole.

All right, I hope that this has helped you build your math mind about number bonds so that you can go out there and help build the math minds of your students.

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