Doubles and Halves: Double the Group, Halve the Group

This 1st grade doubles and halves worksheet has six cards in two columns, and each card is built from pictures of fruits — one fruit per page, kiwis on this one. In the left column, marked double, a row of kiwis sits in a white box above a fact like 4 + 4 = with an empty answer box; the child doubles the group and writes the total. In the right column, marked half, a larger even group of kiwis — eight, ten, six — is cut down the middle by a dashed orange line, and under it the child completes 8 = ▢ + ▢ by writing the two equal parts. The pictures are there to be counted; the equations are there to be finished.

Doubles are the addition facts children remember first and use most, because they are the anchors for near-doubles like 4 + 5, and halves are those same facts read backward. Putting the two side by side on one page makes the connection plain: double 4 is 8 and half of 8 is 4 and 4, and the dashed line shows that a half is a fair split, not just a smaller number. The teacher looks at whether the child counts every kiwi on the doubles side or, after a card or two, starts writing the answer from the fact. On the halves side the tell is whether both boxes get the same number.

Print the PDF free and let the child draw a line through each doubles group to see the mirror before writing. The easier version has four cards with groups of one to four fruits; the harder version has eight cards, doubles from 5 to 10 and halves of numbers up to 20, with no pictures at all. The number walls page uses these same sums inside a pyramid, and the fact family houses page shows how a double and its half belong to one family of facts.