Choose appropriate written or mental methods to add decimals

The ArithmeKit 4.7 from Buzzard Publishing's CanDoMaths series presents a series of exercises designed to help students improve their ability to add decimal numbers. Students are encouraged to choose between written and mental calculation methods, depending on which is more suitable for the problem at hand. The kit includes a variety of tasks such as finding matching pairs of sums, calculating sums with both whole numbers and decimals, and solving problems with missing digits using a unique set of numbers from 0 to 9. These activities are structured to promote critical thinking and to help students recognise patterns and relationships between numbers when adding decimals.

For example, students are asked to add numbers like 3.76 + 5.91 and find the result, which is 9.67. They are also tasked with convincing a character named Colin that certain sums, such as 13.74 + 19.98, do not require a written method and can be efficiently calculated mentally. The exercises include straightforward additions such as 6.6 + 5.7, resulting in 12.3, as well as more complex ones where students need to fill in missing digits to make the sums correct. By working through these problems, students develop their numerical fluency and their ability to choose the most appropriate method of calculation for different types of decimal addition problems.