One maker for every step
- Within 10. The facts children learn first, a whole sheet at a time.
- Within 20. Sums that cross ten, like 8 + 5 and 7 + 6.
- Two digits, no regrouping. Add the ones, then the tens.
- Two digits with regrouping. Ten ones make a ten: carry it to the next column.
- Three digits. The same steps with hundreds.
Stacked or in a row
Stacked problems line the digits up in columns, the way children learn written addition with regrouping. Problems in a row (47 + 25 = ___) suit mental maths and fact practice. Both come with an answer key.
More addition
For younger children, picture addition has groups of pictures to count before the number sentence. For taking away, the subtraction worksheets work the same way, with or without borrowing.
In the MOE curriculum
- Primary 1Children add within 100, including with the column method, and work out sums within 20 in their heads.
- Primary 2Written addition goes up to 3-digit numbers, with mental addition of ones, tens or hundreds to a 3-digit number.
- Primary 3The column method reaches 4-digit numbers, one place beyond this maker, and children add two 2-digit numbers mentally.
Singapore’s syllabus calls carrying “renaming”: when the ones make 10 or more, 10 ones are renamed as 1 ten. Most classes show this with base-ten blocks or counters first, then with drawings, and only then in columns, following the concrete–pictorial–abstract (CPA) approach MOE describes for primary maths.
For facts that cross ten, teachers lean on number bonds and the make-ten idea: 9 + 4 becomes 9 + 1 + 3. Children who can split a number into two parts quickly find the within-20 sheets much easier.
Summarised in our own words from the MOE Primary Mathematics Syllabus (Primary One to Six, 2021, updated October 2025).
