Commutative Property Addition

When we started unit 2 in our math text this year, I was worried. The opening lesson was about the three properties of addition: associative, commutative, and identity. How many of you parents know what all three of those properties are?! I know I didn't learn these terms at that age! 

The most difficult property to practice in our class was the commutative property. It says that no matter how I arrange a set of addends in a number sentence they always are the same and have the same sum. For example: (5 + 3) + 2 = (5 + 2) + 3 = (3 + 2) + 5 = 10... Wowzah!! Confusing! 

The easiest way to look at this property was to use counting bears. We had one color for each addend in the problem and switched them around using our desk and a piece of tape that split it in half. We used a post it to mark our thinking about the numbers on our desk. So one side of our desk might have those 5 blue bears and 3 green bears that we talked about in the problem up above and the other side might have the 2 red bears. But no matter what is on each side of the tape we knew our entire desk had 10 bears on it. Do you get it now? I sure hope so! We're having a test soon and we have been working hard to master these skills...