Adding by Grouping Friendly Numbers

So I've signed up to be part of a project for Math. This time, unlike the TLT that I did a few years ago, I am the test subject. Yup, forty teachers across primary, junior and intermediate grades are coming together to see how we can improve our math teaching abilities.
Hmmmmm....I forsee Math on the Brain. 24-7.
I used this Stuart J Murphy book this week to help introduce the concept of double digit addition with regrouping. It is another great math book by Murphy and the kids LOVED it. After we read it, I displayed one of the pages on my SmartBoard and we discussed math involved in the adding. The next day, I broke the kids into like-ability pairs and gave them a problem like in the book. This way, I could differentiate the difficulty of the question, and help the kids who are struggling in reading to read the question. Wow! What a fun, engaging activity.

I asked kids to pair up with another group to explain to them how they got their answer. This worked really well and gave the kids a chance to talk about their learning.