Elementary Computation

We also subtract all the time, often without thinking about it.  Someone has 5 pieces of candy and then someone takes two, "Hey, I only have 3 left!"  But, teaching subtraction can be a little trickier than teaching addition.

We add all the time -- often without even realizing that we're adding.  The student who has 2 pencils, grabs another and calls out, "Now I have 3 pencils!" just did mental addition without even thinking about it!

Learning addition is a process.  Most people start that process on their fingers (any object will work... but fingers are handy and there are some cool patterns that kids can learn with fingers). 

The most basic form of finger (or object addition) is "counting all."

Example:

$3+5=8$