Parentheses Thoughts

Worksheet Description

This worksheet is an educational tool designed to help students practice the associative property of addition. It presents a series of addition problems where students must apply the associative property to simplify the calculation and find the result. The problems are structured to encourage the rearrangement of addends so that students can combine them in a different order to make the addition easier. Each problem is accompanied by a blank space where students are expected to write the correct sum after using the associative property.

The worksheet aims to teach students the concept of the associative property, which states that the way in which numbers are grouped when adding does not change their sum. By working through these problems, students learn to recognize how to group numbers for easier mental addition. This practice reinforces mental math skills and the understanding that addition can be done in any order without affecting the outcome. The goal is to build students’ confidence in their ability to manipulate and combine numbers flexibly.