Column addition2-digit · 3 numbers
Name: Date:
Add the 3 numbers. Work down the columns.
1681320
2613572
3137542
4162731
5488698
6293512
7596449
8482390
Adding three numbers worksheets
A column with three numbers in it is not just a longer sum — the carry can be two rather than one, and that is the step children are rarely shown. These free printable worksheets stack three two-digit numbers and leave room for the working.
Kid stuck on one? You don’t just get the sheet.
Adding three numbers
The answer key prints on a separate page.
What's on this sheet
Two-digit column addition carries at most one ten. Add a third row and the ones column can total twenty-something, so a 2 goes above the tens. Children who learned carrying as "write the little 1" get these wrong in a way that looks like carelessness and is really a rule half-learned.
Why this sheet works
The order the three are added in is free, and that is worth pointing out. Looking down the column for a pair that makes ten — 7, 3 and 8 is ten and eight — turns a three-step addition into a two-step one, and it is the first place where choosing an order is genuinely faster than working left to right.
How this one works
One question from this sheet, worked through a step at a time.
68 + 13 + 20
11 68 13 20 101
- 68 + 13 + 20, written in columns. Start at the RIGHT, with the ones — and watch the carry: with several numbers it can be a 2, not just a 1.
- 8 + 3 + 0 makes 11. Too big for one column, so write 1 in the ones and carry 1 to the left.
- 6 + 1 + 2 + 1 carried makes 10. Too big for one column, so write 0 in the tens and carry 1 to the left.
- Nothing left to add in the hundreds, but 1 was carried in — so the hundreds is 1.
- That is the whole sum: 68 + 13 + 20 = 101. Check it by adding each column upwards instead of downwards — a different order, so a slip is unlikely to repeat itself.