Math Drills

Order and Strategy

B-1

Calculation (Subtraction Strategy)

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What this worksheet covers

Grade: Grade 2 (Elementary School)
Topic: 3-Number Calculations
Worksheet: Order and Strategy

What gets chosen here is where to begin, not the arithmetic itself. Spotting a pair that makes ten and gathering it first is practiced in order through addition, through subtraction and through equations that mix the two, and put to work in Word Problems as well.

Absorbed in hunting for a pair to gather, children lose sight of the fact that the signs in the equation decide whether that pair is added or taken away. Gathering two numbers that were both being subtracted and adding them is the typical slip, and matching the result against the equation as it originally stood shows it up. Forgetting that a term which was being subtracted stays subtracted after the rearrangement also survives.

The four earlier lessons practiced moving through an equation from the front, whereas this one surveys the whole of it before touching anything. 3-Number Calculations closes here and leads into Rules of Calculation in grade four.