I used this task early on for my 3rd grade class. The reason for giving this task was to allow students to see and recognize the commutative property of addition. The problem is very basic, and allows space for students to give their claim and argument, and also to have a discussion with a partner. Students struggled with understanding what the word “equals” means. They were not used to seeing an equation after the equal sign. Once students understood that equals actually means “the same,” they had a better understanding of how the commutative property works.

Microsoft Word version: 2_NBT_PropertiesCommutative_ThinkPairShare_Construct

PDF version: 2_NBT_PropertiesCommutative_ThinkPairShare_Construct