A number bond describes the ways that a whole number can be made up of (or ‘partitioned’ into) smaller parts. Understanding the relationship between parts-of and whole numbers is an essential skill for our emerging mathematicians. It's also known as composition, and this can be applied to creating, combining and arranging other maths concepts such as patterns, fractions and shapes. Abundant loose parts are great at helping children ‘see’ whole numbers and constituent parts, through physical manipulation of resources, reinforcing addition and subtraction as inverse maths operations – don't forget that splitting a big number into smaller sets is as important as bonding them to make the bigger number.
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