Number Bonds to 10: Part-Whole Relationships

Free sample questions, a clear explanation, and 5 practice skills with an AI tutor that guides without giving the answer away.

Let's Make 10! Number Bond Friends

Hi, superstar! Have you ever made a friendship bracelet? Imagine you have 10 shiny beads. Some are sunny yellow and some are grassy green. The yellow beads are one part of your bracelet, and the green beads are another part. When you string them all together, you have one whole beautiful bracelet with 10 beads!

Number bonds are just like that! They show us how two smaller numbers (the parts) are friends that team up to make a bigger number (the whole). Today, our superstar "whole" number is 10!

Finding the Friends of 10

We can find all the secret pairs that make 10. If you have 10 blocks, you can split them into two piles. What happens if you put 7 blocks in one pile? Count what's left... 3! So, 7 and 3 are number bond friends that make 10. What if you put 2 blocks in one pile? You'll find 8 in the other! 2 and 8 are friends, too!

Key Takeaway!

A number bond has one whole number and two parts. The two parts always add up to make the whole. For us, the parts always make 10!

Snack Time Math!

Let's use our number bond skills for a yummy problem! We're planning a snack for 10 children. We want everyone to get one piece of fruit. This means our whole is 10.

We look in our basket and see 6 red apples. That's our first part! But we need 10 fruits in total. How many more do we need?

Let's draw our number bond!

The number bond shows us that 6 and another number make 10. We can count up from 6: "seven, eight, nine, ten!" That's 4 fingers! So, the missing part is 4.

We need 4 more fruits! The number sentence is: 6 + 4 = 10.

Sample questions

1. Imagine you have 10 red and green apples. You count 7 red apples. How many green apples are there? Which pair shows the two parts?

○ A: 7 and 2

○ B: 6 and 4

✓ C: 7 and 3

○ D: 8 and 2

Answer: C: 7 and 3 — Think about how many more apples you need to make 10 if you already have 7.

2. You have 10 colorful blocks. If 4 of them are blue, how many blocks are a different color? Which pair shows the two parts?

○ A: 4 and 5

○ B: 3 and 7

○ C: 5 and 5

✓ D: 4 and 6

Answer: D: 4 and 6 — If you have 4 blocks, how many more do you need to get to 10?

3. There are 10 cookies on a plate. 8 of them have sprinkles. How many cookies do NOT have sprinkles? Which pair shows the two parts?

○ A: 8 and 1

✓ B: 8 and 2

○ C: 7 and 3

○ D: 9 and 1

Answer: B: 8 and 2 — Count down from 10 if you take away 8, or count up from 8 to 10.

Skills in this topic

Decompose a set of 10 objects into two parts using concrete manipulatives.
Compose a set of 10 objects from two parts using concrete manipulatives.
Represent number bonds for 10 using pictorial models.
Write number bond equations for 10.
Plan a snack for 10 children, ensuring each child gets one fruit. If you have 6 apples, how many more fruits do you need? Explain using a number bond.

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