Addition Facts to 20: Twelve Sums, No Subtraction

Every one of the twelve problems on this Grade 1 page is an addition, and all of them stay within 20. The sums are printed as bare facts in a grid, each ending in a box for the answer — nothing to count, nothing to color, and no subtraction slipped in to break the rhythm. Both addends are at least two, so there are no free plus-one facts padding the page. The child adds in their head and fills twelve boxes.

A single-operation page is worth having on the shelf even though mixed practice is the long-term goal. When every problem adds, the child can settle into one strategy and actually rehearse it — bridging through ten for 8 plus 5, leaning on a known double for 7 plus 6, counting on from the larger number for 9 plus 2 — instead of switching mental gears between one line and the next. That is how a strategy turns into a habit. Once it has, mixing the operations back in becomes the honest test of whether it really stuck.

The page prints free as a PDF and works well as the first half of a pair: run it one day and subtraction facts to 20 the next, so both directions get a clean session of their own. Fact families to 10 then shows the two operations as one relationship rather than two jobs.